


Kim Shimmers and the Screech Owl

by KFrancesAuthorExtraordinaire



Series: The Kim Shimmers Series [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Canon, Book 3: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Coming of Age, Hogwarts Third Year, Inter-House Friendships, Ravenclaw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-12 07:25:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 44,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4470437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KFrancesAuthorExtraordinaire/pseuds/KFrancesAuthorExtraordinaire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kim Shimmers is an American 13 year old witch living in North Carolina-- until she puts in her transfer to Hogwarts. She's clever enough, and good at all things magical creatures, so Hogwarts accepts her with open arms. But Kim has a hard time fitting in at the new school and with her house. With mysterious predictions floating in her ears and her bird Strix causing distress, will she even have time to focus on her classes? </p>
<p>   This fic is very youthful. No romance, yet (sequels in progress). It essentially tackles themes of fitting in, friendship, across-house friendship, and coming of age. I wanted to explore a bit more the world of divination and magical creatures. There are some minor 'alternate canon' type changes in this set of chapters, more to come.<br/><img/><br/><a>Art Credit</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Puddle Jumping

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE ABOUT CONTENT: This story is taking place during the time of Harry's 3rd year and contains some scenes from Prisoner of Azkaban (though usually quite altered because they are from Kim's POV) However, in these scenes there are some instances of direct quotes used for character dialogue. I did this when Kim's actions wouldn't reasonably change the other characters' dialogue, but she would need to be present for something that was said. I did this to maintain the feelings that the characters ARE JK's character's in how they speak and act, and I kind of hope readers will even notice the quotes, if they're a super avid HP fan ;)  
> Furthermore, none of this content could in any way exist without the majestic JK Rowling, trumpets sound in the distance, drum rolls, we all applaud.

Chapter 1

Puddle Jumping

   “I just can’t believe you’re _actually_ going away… all the way to Scotland?” Retta said. She and Kim Shimmers were sitting on the roof of Retta’s house, watching the clouds and the treetops absently. “Like, I’ve known about it for months now but… I just can’t wrap my head around it. I’m gonna miss you.”

   Kim didn’t look away from the tree tops across the yard. She was too excited about attending the new school to even think about missing Retta, even though she felt slightly guilty for it. “I go away every year,” Kim reminded her. And she had. Kim had been attending boarding school for two years now, so she was only ever home for holidays and for the summer. What Retta didn’t know, was that Kim didn’t attend a normal boarding school. She attended a boarding school for witches and wizards. What she wouldn’t give to see the look on Retta’s face if only Kim could tell her that.

   “I know, I know… and I always miss you. But this is different, you know?”

   Kim laughed and finally looked over to Retta as a breeze picked up some of her hair. It was brown and straight, falling to her shoulders in somewhat uneven looking angles. She had warmly toned skin from all the outdoor sports she did over the summer, and her freckles were out in full force across her cheeks. Kim, on the other hand was pale and only marked by the occasional dark, nearly black freckle, and had waves of honey blond hair cut to the same length.

   “Retta, I’ll be back for Christmas.”

   “But not for Thanksgiving,” Retta retorted. She was referring to the fact that the United Kingdom didn’t celebrate thanksgiving, and therefore didn’t give their students holiday for it.

   “Okay,” Kim allowed, though she rolled her eyes when she did it. “It’s a month’s difference, I’m sure you’ll survive.”

   “What if I don’t, Kim?” Retta said seriously, which only made Kim snicker and role her eyes more severely.

   “When I come back, I promise to tell you all about it. I’ll even send Mom letters for you!”

   “She’ll probably read them to spy on you,” Retta said with a curl forming in her upper lip.

   Kim looked at her with a furrowed brow. “No she won’t. It’ll be fine.” Retta had a fierce love-hate relationship with Kim’s Mom. Recently it had been more hate, however, and Kim couldn’t help but wondering if it was because she was allowing Kim to study abroad while Retta never had such an opportunity. Retta sometimes had a bit of a jealous tendency, though Kim usually didn’t hold it against her.

   Then Kim heard a distant ringing sound, and knew instantly to what bell the toll belonged. It was a giant old bell, something Kim’s parent’s had inherited with the property. Her mother always rang it when it was time to come home, because it could be heard from pretty much anywhere in the neighborhood, as long as she was outside.

   “That’s my cue,” Kim said, rolling onto her hands and knees to crawl off the roof using the metal shelving unit that sat on Retta’s deck. It was supposed to serve as a decorative piece, but for Kim and Retta, it served as a later.

   “I’ll see you before you leave, right?” Retta pressed as Kim made contact with the deck.

   “Oh my gosh, _yes,_ ” Kim insisted, getting annoyed by Retta’s antics. It wasn’t that she wouldn’t miss her, it was just that she wouldn’t miss her _yet._ “I’ll see you later dude.” She through a wave over her shoulder and bounced down the deck stairs and around the side of Retta’s yard.

   August was hot in Cary, North Carolina. Kim hated the heat, and she was looking forward to a place that was cooler, even if that meant it was going to rain all the time. That was what she’d been told, anyway, by strangers or acquaintances who found out she was going to be attending a boarding school in Europe. She didn’t think she’d mind it too much if it did rain, as long as it wasn’t so thick with choking heat. She didn’t like wearing shorts, on account of the fact that she didn’t like her thighs, pale and splotchy red as they were, as well as round. She wasn’t over weight, but her thighs and knees were her least favorite, so if she could cover them she would.

   By the time she got home, she had a light sheen of sweat on her forehead, coating her rather predominant looking features. She had a strong nose, with wide, ovular green eyes. She had a heart shaped face with soft cheeks that dimpled when she smiled, and a wicked hook in her left brow that was knowing, if not a bit condescending at times. As she opened the side door to her house the sun was starting to set, and dinner was being spread on plates. Kim pulled up a chair at the table, across from her sister Danni and beside her mother. After engaging her sister in an interrogation about homework completion, Mrs. Shimmers turned her attention to Kim.

   “Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you on the plane?” she asked, rather abruptly. Kim frowned and pulled the dangling spaghetti into her mouth.

   “I’ll be fine,” she said, her mouth full as she shook her head.

   “Because I figured that we should be able to afford another ticket if you’re worried about flying alone.”

   “Mom, I’ve flown alone before.”

   “Well, you weren’t alone. You were with your sister.”

   “Yeah. My _little_ sister. Emphasis on the little. So in that situation, I was the supervision.”

   “I’m only two years younger than you, ya’ know,” Danni piped in. Kim was well aware of their age difference, but she felt certain that at 13 and 10, the difference mattered. Of course, Danni would be 11 soon, but Kim didn’t bother figuring this into her thought process.

   “It’s fine. Besides, Aunt Brit is there to pick me up, right?”

   “Yeah, I just—”

   “Then I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.”

   “All right.”

   In reality, it was the Aunt Brit part that had Kim worried, not the flying. She had only really met Aunt Brit a few times over the years. She had always seemed _strange,_ though not in a bad way, just in an eccentric way. That all made sense now, considering she was a witch. Aunt Brit was Kim’s mother’s half-sister. They were fairly close, as sister’s go, but being that Mrs. Shimmers herself, and Mr. Shimmers were both muggles, they had agreed to keep magical folks secret from their children. Well, they hadn’t just agreed, it was part of magical law. If you didn’t have magical blood close in your family, you weren’t supposed to go spreading around the knowledge that witches and wizards existed. However, cases like the Shimmers family were odd because it was made of half muggles, half magical folk. Kim’s half was almost entirely muggle, so her parent’s had elected that it would be easier to simply keep the wizarding world secret. Until Kim was about 7 and a half, that is, and she noticed the Bundimun infestation in the forest beside her house, and asked what a fungus was doing with so many eyes.

   Ever since then, Kim and her family had known she would go to a wizarding school. She got her letter in the mail, as expected, and began at Lemmonforth School for Witches and Wizards when she was 11. She’d liked Lemmonforth, and she still liked it quite a bit. She’d even made a few friends there that she supposed she would miss. But there was nothing, _nothing_ that could hold a candle to the blazing flame that was the famous Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She hadn’t had a chance of going there. She’d heard of the school, and of other wizarding schools, but she’d never once considered transferring. But again, that was until her Magical Creatures professor noticed her aptitude. He’d told her that, unfortunately, there wasn’t much in the way of studies for Magical Creatures at Lemmonforth. In fact, there weren’t many programs for Magical Creatures in America at all. Or anywhere in the western hemisphere.

_“No,”_ he’d said, _“if you want to progress, truly, you’d be best applying for transfer to Hogwarts.”_

Kim had immediately wondered if that was even a thing she could do. Was she smart enough? Would they want her? At Hogwarts, one of, if not _the_ best wizarding schools in the entire world? But Kim had been assured that she might have a chance, being that she was a bright young witch, and transfer students were uncommon but appreciated in the wizarding community. _Breeds worldliness, you know,_ she’d been told. And on top of that, Magical Creatures was a hungry field in the UK, as well as Australia. Kim had the grades for it. Though she felt she was too young to know if Magical Creatures was the topic she’d want to study for the rest of her life, she did like it, and she did have natural talent for it. If that got her into Hogwarts, then so be it.

* * *

   The plane ride was long. So long that it stopped even feeling like flying at all, because in Kim’s experience, flying was traveling, something intermediate and prepositional, in that it comes _before_ what’s important; the arrival. But 13 hours is such a long time that it begins to overtake one’s entire existence. By the seventh or eighth hour, Kim began to feel as though flying was just her permanent state of being, and that she would forever revolve between the uncomfortable seats, the blinking dim lights, the coughing mumbling English passengers, and the stark brightness of the airports. And, bitterly, her mother had been right. Flying alone _was_ different than flying with her sister. Three strangers tried to talk to her at her layover, and though she knew it was likely they were just trying to make light conversation, it didn’t cease to make her uncomfortable. That, and her wand was in her baggage, far away from where she could access it to use for self-defense, were she to ever have the need. She wished she didn’t have to fly at all, but unlike some of her friends who had non-muggle parents, her family didn’t possess convenient magical forms of transportation.

   At long last, the plane touched down in London. It was 10:20 in the morning, but Kim’s body thought it was the middle of the night due to jetlag, and due to not really being able to sleep at all on the plane anyway, her heart thought it didn’t matter what time it was, it was time to sleep. But alas, it was _really_ time to meet Aunt Brit, and Kim’s stomach was squirming with nervousness to compliment her exhaustion.

   “Kimmy!” came an exuberant voice. No one called Kim Kimmy except strangers who were old enough to consider her still practically an infant, even though she was a teenager. But when Kim swirled around to see the voice that had called to her, Aunt Brit didn’t seem any older than she remembered. She seemed about the same age as her mother, somewhere in her upper 40s, with crow’s feet and laugh lines. But she had a youthful glint in her eyes and she wrapped her arms around Kim, to which Kim obliged awkwardly. Kim hated over friendly reunions with people she didn’t know, mostly because she never knew quite what to do with her hands, but she thought she pulled it off alright with a few pats to her aunt’s back and a tight smile.

   “Hi,” she greeted back.

   “You’ve gotten so tall!” Brit said. “How long as it been, I wonder. I mean I knew it had been a while but… Jeeze, you’ve gotten big kid. And a witch to boot!”

   “Yeah,” Kim said, laughing awkwardly. “I’m the witch of the family. Well-” she corrected, “one of them, I guess.”

   “That’s right. I was glad when I found out that little Janey had a baby witch of her own. What about your sister?” she asked with a raised brow. “Is she…”

   “No, definitely not.”

   “Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “Well, best be off to collect your luggage. I bet you’re tired. Can’t imagine being on a plan for that long.”

   Kim just nodded sleepily and followed her aunt to the baggage claim. She was glad to have an adult lead her through the motions of things. The thought reminded her; “Hey, uh, thanks for letting me stay with you by the way. And being my contact and everything.”

   “No problem! Hogwarts is a great school. I’m excited you’re getting to go there.” Aunt Brit did seem genuinely excited, and her whirly light brown hair bouncing around her thin face and beanstalk frame was endearing, but Kim was just too beat to appreciate it at the moment. She _was_ thankful, however, that Aunt Brit was allowing her to stay, and had been willing to be her contact. After Kim had begun the process of applying to transfer to Hogwarts, she found out it was quite a bit more complicated than her professor had made it out to seem at first. Without some adult to claim her living in the UK, it would be very difficult for her to transfer, and even less likely for her to be accepted given the fact that her parents were muggles. It wasn’t that Hogwarts disliked muggle born children, but because Kim was out of the country and had parents that knew virtually nothing about the wizarding world, it would require a lot of extra care on the part of the Hogwarts staff. Having Aunt Brit, a witch, and one who had an address in London, made things even easier. She could get her school supplies and be dropped off at the train like she was supposed to be, and if there was an emergency she would have an address to go to on short notice.

   Really she owed Aunt Brit even more because this London address was not her usual one. Brit was a successful metal charmer, and made quite a comfortable living off it. She never married, and had no children. So she had a house in London for business and work, and a country home in Iowa where she lived most of the year. Her London home was quite small, only one bedroom and bathroom, but it would do Kim just fine she was sure.

   As Kim and Aunt Brit exited the airport she was deposited into an odd looking cab that she didn't pay much mind to. She almost started to doze on the drive, though it was difficult with the scenery passing her by, and London starting to crop up all around her. The drive was too short anyway, and they stopped before Kim managed to fully fall asleep. Kim thought London reminded her of D.C. with small curving streets that wound in a tangled mess and ornate buildings that were old and columned. The streets were busy and full of flowing English accents. She pulled herself from the cab as Aunt Brit payed with odd coins and helped her heave her luggage out of the back.

   “Strange, isn’t it?” Aunt Brit asked as they walked down the street and the cab drove off, a light chuckle notable in her tone.

   “What?” Kim asked.

   “Being on the muggle side of things,” she explained, like it was an obvious observation. But to Kim, it wasn’t. Kim was very used to being on the muggle side of things, though she was also used to her witch and wizard friends who were totally out of touch with the muggle world as well. Being part of both made her feel slightly like an outcast, though; not truly a member of either group, not truly an outsider of both.

   “Oh, of course,” Aunt Brit said, realizing. “I guess you would be used to all this. I never come to this part of town. But, were not far from home. Well, home away from home. It’s not much, but I think you’ll find it’ll do fine in a pinch.”

   They rounded a corner and walked down a rather boring, empty alleyway. Kim had learned to be suspicions of empty looking alleyways, however. At the end of the path there was nothing but a large smelly dumpster with its lid cracked half open and some bottles over turned at its base. Brit pulled out her wand and flicked it at the trash can after giving the alley behind her a quick cautionary glance.

   “Aparecium,” she said under her breath. Before Kim’s eyes the garbage can began to rustle, its two black lids taking on the form of eyebrows and the doors on its center forming the mouth. It gave a grumbled cough and squinted at Brit.

   “Password,” it said in a deep scratchy voice.

   “Three eyed newt,” she said confidently.

   “Wrong,” the trash can said in its English accent. Kim would have chuckled, but she was too busy worrying that it was starting to morph back into an acceptable muggle trashcan and wasn’t letting them through.

   “What do you mean wrong, that was the password last time I came through here!”

   The trashcan paused in its transition to normal and looked back up at Brit. “They changed it in June.”

   “Well I wasn’t here in June, was I? You know I never take this way.”

   “How should I know?”

   “For crying out loud, just let me through! You must know it’s me, you see me on a regular basis!”

   “Not as regular as others. Not to mention, judgment calls ain’t me job. Passwords are me job. And you don’t have the right password.”

   She heaved a large sigh. “Fine. Can you just call whoever’s in charge then, if you’re capable of _that._ I’m sure they could straiten all this out.

   “Very well.” With that the trashcan went back to its old, plane self.

   “Well. That was frustrating,” Brit said, her arms folding across her chest. Kim leaned against the brick wall beside her, even though it didn’t exactly look clean. Her eyes were lulling and exhaustion was making her sway on her feet. Her perception was so dulled by her fatigue that she barely noticed when a man came hurrying down the alleyway. He and Aunt Brit shared a few hurried exchanges of hellos and apology before he gave Brit the proper password for the summer, apologizing for the inconvenience again, and vanishing down the hallway once more.

   Without prompting, the trashcan’s lids lifted off the metal frame as it split down the center, pulling apart to either side of the alleyway. Kim pushed off the brick wall and followed Brit past the now wide open mouth of the trashcan, and into more alleyway that hadn’t been there before. After a few steps they were entering a courtyard of town houses with brooms sweeping the steps by themselves, and owls sitting on the open windowsills. This was a magical neighborhood, something Kim had never herself set foot into. But she couldn’t much appreciate it in her current state.

   She dragged herself and her luggage up the stairs after Brit and to the stoop of one of the white town houses. It had green detailing and shutters, with dying plants in the garden. She opened the door into the house and held it for Kim. They entered into a small living room with warm furnishings and a chess table in the center of the seating arrangements. The kitchen was connected to the living room and was also very small. There was a door to the right, which Kim could only assume was a closet, and a hallway that led to another open door, the bathroom, and the single bedroom.

   For the few days that Kim would be staying here, she would be inhabiting the couch. Aunt Brit had insisted that Kim could stay at the house alone, and take the bedroom, but Kim’s mother had insisted right back, with a more iron will than what Brit had evidently, that Kim was too young to be left alone for that long. Kim didn’t much mind either way. She wasn’t too keen on the idea of being left alone in a city she didn’t know to prepare for a school she’d never seen. She was glad to have Brit with her for help, couch arrangement or no.

   “So, its pretty cozy- well, it’s small,” Brit tittered, closing the front door. “But, you know, it does the trick for business trips into town. Oh, do you want any help unpacking or anything like that? You can put you—” she stopped short because Kim was already collapsing on the couch. She gave a soft laugh. “I guess you’re probably pretty tired.”

   Kim nodded from under her arm that was shielding her eyes from the light.

   “Well, you go ahead and catch up on your sleep. You only have a few days to get adjusted to Greenwich Mean Time before you’re first day of school so, best to get on that then.”

   Kim was already way ahead of her.


	2. Salt and Chocolate

Chapter 2

Salt and Chocolate

   Kim slept a lot for the next few days. While flying she’d felt like she’d adopted a constant state of being in a plane or in an airport. Now she simply felt as if she’d adopted a constant state of groggy, confused exhaustion. When she woke, it was dark, and when she felt like sleeping, it was day, and the result was constant disorientation and drowsiness.

   But, after a few days of this her body adjusted to the new time zone, and she was finally waking up in the morning. And just in time too. It was the day before September the first; the day she would be departing on the train to her new school.

   Aunt Brit had agreed to help Kim get all her school supplies in order, but that hadn’t happened yet due to Kim’s exhaustion and Brit being evidently very busy with some sudden business that kept her locked in her room most of the day, whispering incantations over various metal items. Now there was only today remaining, so Brit had of course agreed to relinquish her work and take Kim to Diagon Alley. After bypassing the magical entrance, Kim was immediately hit by the overwhelming presence of witches and wizards.

   “Well then, what do you need Kim?” Aunt Brit asked. It seemed, over the time of her stay, Aunt Brit had caught on that Kimmy was not a preferred name anymore.

   “Uh, let’s see,” she said, unfolding her list of supplies. “I already have a wand of course.”

   “Shame. Ollivander is the best in the business from what I hear. If you ever need a replacement, you should go to him.” Kim didn’t want a replacement wand. She quite liked hers, with a thestral tail core, Silver Lime wood that was a light color, almost a white gold. It had raised swirling brown marks that started just above the lip of the handle and traveled like vines to half way up the wand, dispersing and disappearing.

   “Well, really it seems all I’ll need is books,” Kim continued. And while that was true, she would need quite a lot of them.

   “That’ll be over here I’d say,” Aunt Brit said, pointing at a store front that had books lining the outside stands as well as visible through the windows. It read Flourish and Blotts overhead and had quite a long trail of young witches and wizards coming out of it. The store was full of the chattering sounds of students and also a strangely loud flutter of pages. Kim wadded through the throng of Hogwarts students also waiting for their books while she lazily watched a few books rearrange themselves on the shelves, seeming to be having a polite disagreement of sorts as to which of them got the first position. Finally it was Kim’s turn to receive her stack of books from the manager, who had taken it upon himself to gather the books in stacks to make it easy for the students. But there was something holding the line up.

   He swiveled around after sliding a heavy stack of books forward to Kim and picked up a large staff, moving toward what Kim realized was causing the hold up. There was a large cage, and within it, scuttling books that were evidently the cause of the rancorous fluttering noise, along with tearing and even what Kim thought was growling. The books inside the cage waddled about the floor and fought one another, their pages tearing and covers creasing. The manager bent down cautiously and opened the cage. Quickly he speared one of the books with his staff and slid it toward the entrance of the cage. He then struggled with the book, wrapping a weak looking piece of string around the book a few times, sealing it shut, though it snapped and fought against the binding with all its might. The man straitened and gave a sigh.

   “Now,” he said in a rehearsed sounding tone, “that won’t hold forever, so… be prepared. There you are.” He handed the book to her and she promptly paid, storing it with her other books and eyeing it suspiciously. _The Monster Book of Monsters_.

   She left Flourish and Blotts and met her aunt back in the street. She supposed she was finished with her school shopping, but she still had a bit of money from her parents, and there was so much to see. She was reluctant to go back home so soon.

   “Get everything you need?” Brit asked.

   “Yeah,” she answered, nudging the heavy pile of books.

   “If you want, I could take those back for you and you could have a look around. Maybe you’d even meet a few friends. There’s loads of Hogwarts students crawling around here today.”

   “Yeah, that’d be good I think. Would you mind?”

   “Not at all. You remember the password?”

   “Floating toad tongue,” Kim recited, to which Brit nodded.

   “Since you’re under aged, the gate keeper should let you pass if you just pull out your wand and say the password. See you back at home.”

   Kim found that she was coming to like Aunt Brit quite a bit. Perhaps it was that she herself didn’t have children, so she wasn’t very keen on keeping an eye on them. She certainly had a looser way of parenting than her mother, who wouldn’t approve of this venture. But Kim was glad to have more time to explore the exciting Diagon Ally.

   After walking up and down the street and getting a few goodies for herself, mostly chocolate, Kim was thinking of heading home. But then her eye caught on a magical creature shop. Kim had never been to one before. They weren’t common in her area being that there wasn’t a large wizarding metropolises near where she lived, so there weren’t many wizarding shops at all. Excited, she pushed through the doors of Magical Menagerie.

   Everything was cage and fur or feather. The air was full of the sound, caws and coos and growls. They seemed to have every type of magical creature that could comfortably, or more _possibly_ , fit in a store. Kim watched the giant tortoise with its jewel-encrusted shell as it blinked lazily in the window. She’d read about these once. It wasn’t a wizard made modification, contrary to popular belief. The jewels on the tortoise’s back was actually a symbiotic relationship between the tortoise and a rare mineral fungus that Kim couldn’t recall the name of. She frowned, standing and trying to remember what it was called. _Fermentatall… Termenda-_ but it wasn’t coming to her, and there were dozens of other fascinating creatures there to draw her attention.

   Kim had always wanted to get a witchy pet ever since she’d fist started at Lemmonforth. Even there it was somewhat common for students to bring along a toad or a rat, though not nearly as common as she’d read it was in Hogwarts. Also, most students in Lemmonforth didn’t have their own owls, they used their families or the school’s. So Kim hadn’t been allowed a new pet when she left home, due to the level of responsibility required to take care of a pet, and the expense. But Kim had some money now, and no mother around to tell her what to spend it on otherwise…

   “Thinking of getting a cat too?” came a pleasant girlish voice from Kim’s right. She looked over to see a girl, average in height like Kim, with medium brown hair that was wavy and wiry, and in somewhat of a windswept poof around her shoulders. Her cheeks formed round balls when she smiled, though, and her nose was dainty. Her brown eyes were polite and enquiring, but Kim thought she caught something aged and knowing in their dark reflection.

   “Oh, uh,” Kim stammered a bit, pulled from her own thoughts about her mother’s rule against getting a pet. “Yeah, I was sort of considering.” She was currently peering into a cage with a silver cat with short hair. It looked smart and dignified, and Kim thought it would be a great pet. She was nervous about getting an animal at all behind her mother’s back, but if she was going to, she supposed a cat was the safest option. She glanced over at the woman behind the counter, wondering if she would let her play with this one before she decided.

   “I wasn’t sure what I wanted, but then this little cuttie just sort of landed in my lap,” said the girl, hoisting up a flaming orange fur ball into her arms. Kim couldn’t help but laugh because it was about as _cat_ as cats could come. It was the kind only a crazy cat woman could love. “What?” the girl asked, sounding slightly offended.

   “Oh, nothing,” Kim said, clearing the laughter from her tone. “He’s very…” Kim tried to think of a word to accurately describe the cat that would also be a compliment but she couldn’t. She started laughing again. “That is an intense cat.” Kim saw the girl start to smile despite herself, and then even laugh at Kim’s enjoyment.

   “I suppose he is,” she admitted, running a hand along the top of his head. “His name is Crookshanks, and I’m Hermione.”

   “Oh, nice to meet you,” Kim said reaching out to take the hand that Hermione had offered and firmly shaking it. “My name’s Kim.”

   “Are you from the US? If you don’t mind me asking.”

   “Yeah, I just got here to go to Hogwarts,” Kim said. It felt better than she could have imagined to simply say that, without having to worry about a cover story. Back home, everyone she talked to she had to tell some version of the truth. Here, in the wizarding section of London, she could be her full self.

   “Oh, how wonderful! I go to Hogwarts.”

   Kim smiled. “Maybe I’ll see you there.”

   Hermione was just smiling and giving a pleasant nod, when Kim was distracted by a pair of talons gently pressing into her shoulder. She looked to her right to see a very small bird had perched there.

   “Oh my goodness,” Hermione said, “he’s so small.”

   “That there is a she, actually,” said the shop owner as she came around from her desk to stand before the girls. Kim recognized that the bird was an owl, but it was no more than half a foot tall and was an oval little ball of burnt orange feathers with a freckled white underbelly. Her yellow eyes stared back at Kim kindly. She couldn’t help but smile.

   “She’s a North Eastern Screech Owl.”

   “A Screech Owl?” Kim asked.

   “That’s right. Sounds like an inconvenience on first listen, but I assure you the cords on this little lass‘ll scare away any predator who tries to impede her delivery. That, and she’s bloody clever. This one especially. Though, I’ll admit she’s got a bit of an attitude on her.” Kim gave a light chuckle.

   “Well… I can’t be getting an owl. Mom would kill me, a cat is one thing but…” she tucked her finger under the little owl’s feet and lifted her to a different perch. But the owl wasn’t having it. She flapped and hopped and flew right back to Kim’s other shoulder, giving her a light peck on the side of the head.

   “Owe,” Kim complained.

   “It’s as I thought,” the shop owner said. “I think she’s chosen you.”

   “You _have_ to get her now,” Hermione said. “Crookshanks chose me in a way I think,” she said, lowering her eyes slightly and smiling with a hint of embarrassment. “I don’t know, but… perhaps there are things like this you shouldn’t ignore.”

   “The lass is right,” the woman said. “The owl hasn’t a name yet. That’s because she wouldn’t answer to any name. I’ll bet she’ll answer to whatever name you give her.”

   Kim sighed. She couldn’t deny that she very much liked the little owl.

   “Oh, I better go,” Hermione said, looking out the window to the street. “It was nice meeting you though. Hope to see you at school.”

   “You too, bye,” Kim said. She looked at the owl perched on her shoulder. It was undeniably cute, all fluff and giant eyes. Then it opened its beak and gave a deafening screech, so loud and terrifying, like the gates to the underworld were being dragged open and from within it a hell beast was shrieking. Every creature in the shop fell silent for a moment, awe struck or terrified, or both. The owl simple blinked cutely and readjusted it’s footing on Kim’s shoulder.

   “Alright, I’ll take it. How much?”

   “Usually that bird would come at a high price. But, to see it go to you, I’ll give it to ya’ for half,” she said. And so Kim went home with a screech owl, a cage, a bowl, and even a small handbook on how to care for mail owls, though she couldn’t see herself using the bird for mail much. Home was just too far a trip for wings that small. Aunt Brit wasn’t thrilled to see an owl of that breed come into her house, but she didn’t complain either. Perhaps that was because she had one night to go before Kim would be boarding the Hogwarts express.

* * *

   Usually meals at Aunt Brit’s consisted of easy pre-made stuff like cereal, but this morning Brit had prepared scrambled eggs and bacon. Kim thanked her and asked if there was anything she could bring along for lunch, given that she’d spent most of her money on her owl and she didn’t want to spend any more of it.

   “What are you going to name that thing?” Aunt Brit asked.

   “I’m not sure yet. I want to give her a good name, so I’ve been looking through the dictionary and some other text books for something interesting, but I haven’t settled on anything yet.”

   “How about Strix?”

   “Strix?”

   “It’s Latin, for screech owl, sort of… well, if you really want to go way back it’s a mythical beast that may or may not have existed, according to muggle legend. Rather nasty beasties that sucked the blood of infants, and terrible bad omens, _but_ I suppose if you controlled the Strix that would’ve made you quite a powerful witch, as the legend goes,” she said with a chuckle.

   “I like it,” Kim said, peering up at her tiny owl. “Strix it is. Oh! Something else, would you mind signing my Hogsmeade form? Mom already signed it, but I’m worried since you’re my emergency contact they might want you to sign.”

   “Sure thing.” Aunt Brit signed the form beside where her mother had already signed it and then gave a weary glance up at her niece.

   “You read the papers lately?” she asked. Kim shook her head. “A very dangerous man is on the loose. Sirius Black. I’m sure they’ll catch him soon… but if they don’t, just be careful. Not that you would have anything to worry about. You’ll be in about the safest place there is to be.” As she said it, the worry seemed to drain from her, like she was reassuring herself with the reminder. Kim was too excited for the day to come to be worried anyway.

   Once breakfast was over, Aunt Brit called the Cloaked Cabby to send a driver to the door. Once they arrived, Aunt Brit helped Kim load her luggage into the cab.

   “Are you certain you won’t need me at the train station?” she asked Kim. Kim wasn’t at all certain, but she didn’t want to burden her aunt any more than she already had.

   “I’m sure I’ll be fine. If I need help, I’ll find a witch. Thanks for all your help, Brit,” she said with a tight smile. The tightness was from the nerves of endeavoring through London on her own, rather than from ungratefulness.

   “Anytime. You need my help or anything, don’t hesitate to write.”

   With that, Kim was nodding and sliding into the Cloaked Cabby, telling the driver where she needed to go. They were a wizard’s cab service that worked much like a regular cab service but were a bit more pricy, unnecessarily in Kim’s opinion since a regular cab would have worked just fine, though she couldn’t help but notice they were more efficient in some ways. For one thing, the car seemed able to take turns that should be impossible, and squeeze in tight spots that were simply too tight. In no time at all it seemed, Kim was climbing out of the cab and paying the fair with the money her aunt had given her. It took her some time to load all her things onto a dolly and begin toting it through the train station.

   The station was, from what Kim could tell, entirely normal. She pulled her luggage along, Strix squawking angrily for being locked in her cage, until she reached platform 9. The gleaming ticket in her hand read platform 9 ¾, but of course there was nothing of the sort to be found. Kim stood and looked around until she spotted a girl of around her age, sporting luggage and what Kim thought must be a bagged caldron. She also had a toad clutched in her hand. Definitely a witch. Kim watched as she marched strait for the archway between platform 9 and 10 without any sign of stopping. And then she passed right through it.

   Looking around again, Kim saw that none of the muggles found this the least bit odd, which meant it must be protected from them with enchantments. So steeling herself, Kim started forward to copy the witch before her. She moved for the wall and didn’t stop until she had passed through it. It was an uncomfortable feeling, mostly because she was uncertain she was doing it right and feared she would run smack into the wall. But she came, unhindered, onto what must have been platform 9 ¾ with a black and red train sitting before her, billowing smoke stack and all. She glanced up above her head to see that she was, indeed in the right place, and continued down the platform.

   Witches and wizards were kissing their parents goodbye, receiving reminders and warning about what to do and not to do this year and school. Her confidence was further cemented that this was the train to Hogwarts. She loaded her luggage onto the train and chose an empty compartment. After much squawking she took Strix’s cage down and sat it in front of her.

   “Shush will you,” she said under her breath. She’d left the door to the compartment open, figuring that as the time for the train to depart neared, people would probably elect to sit in her compartment over the no longer empty ones around her.

   “What do you want?” she begged, not understanding why the owl insisted on crying and hopping up and down. At least it hadn’t made a real fuss by screeching at its full capacity. She thought if it had done that, certainly the whole train would avoid her. She liked Strix, but she hoped she would cost her making friends at her new school.

   Finally Kim opened the cage and the owl flapped out happily to perch on Kim’s shoulder, careful not to puncture her robes, though Kim thought if this continued she would certainly scratch them.

   “Fine,” Kim muttered in forfeit, stuffing the cage back with her other things and sitting back beside the window. As she thought, it wasn’t long before another student came into the compartment and sat across from Kim.

   “You don’t mind if I sit here do you?” she asked. Kim shook her head politely and went back to looking out the window at the students scurrying along the platform. She thought about making small talk with the girl, but she was no good at it, and didn’t know what to say, so she sat in silence instead. The train was only a few minutes from leaving when a rambunctious sound of laughter made its way toward her compartment. Appearing in the doorway were two identical pares of lanky teenage boys, both with shaggy orange hair that swayed as they tossed their heads back from laughing at some unheard joke.

   “Here’s good,” they both said to each other at the same time, swinging into Kim’s compartment and sitting across from each other next to the compartment door, which they left open. They turned their heads to look across the aisle to a compartment that was full next to them.

   “Hey Lee, you’re looking rather tan, did you take holiday somewhere tropical?” one of the twins said to the boy across the way, which Kim found rather rude given the fact that he was black, and obviously _not_ sun tanned.

   But the boy just snickered and said, “And what about you Fred? Didn’t you and your family go to Egypt? Still pasty as ever though.” At this the twins looked at each other with devilish smiles, like they were enjoying the banter the way a swordsmen would enjoy a sporting fight. They made a sound of mock pain, but it sounded more like enjoyment, and it ended in laughter. They then turned their attention to the contents of their own cubical as huddles of students passed by in the aisle, blocking their view.

   “And who might you be?” the other twin who wasn’t Fred asked. He was sitting across from Kim and was eyeing her curiously. Her stomach turned with nerves. Before she had found herself intrigued by the boys, wanting to talk to them for no reason in particular other than to simply be involved in their jovial nature. But now that their attention was turned on her, she felt herself tightening.

   “Kim,” she said stiffly, glancing at Fred beside her, who to her discomfort was also eyeing her with curiosity.

   “Kim…” he drew out.

   “Kim Shimmers? What, it’s not like you know every student at Hogwarts.”

   They both shrugged and said together, “Not _every_ student.”

   Kim felt the train begin to leave, so she turned her attention to watch as the platform moved by, slowly at first, and then racing away in a blur. Soon they were surrounded by countryside. Kim let herself be entertained by Strix hopping around on her hand and making cute squinting faces, meanwhile listening as the twins, whose names she had learned by now were Fred and George, had ridiculous conversations with the boy Lee across the hallway.

   When the trolley came by, she hesitated and decided to go ahead and buy just a small treat. She got up and moved to stand between the twins, looking over the cart’s contents and deciding between price and value.

   “You there, hurry up would you?” came someone who was standing on the other side of the trolley, evidently trying to get by. Kim saw it was a smartly dressed boy, whose robes looked new and well laundered, with slicked back blond hair and pale skin.

   “Oh, sorry, uh…” she glanced over her choices again. “I’ll just have this one then,” she finally decided and paid for her selection, the ever trusted chocolate frog.

   “Wait a minute,” the blond boy said, squinting at her. “You’re not a first year, are you?”

   “… No.”

   “You’re not English either. You’re American, aren’t you?” he asked.

   “Yes…”

   “Interesting. Never met a Yank before. Pleased to meet you,” he held out his hand. Kim looked at it with a bit of surprise, but took it none the less. “I’m Draco Malfoy. I assume you’re the transfer student my father was telling me about.”

   “Um, yeah I am bu—”

   As Kim spoke, Fred inhaled deeply like he was sniffing for something, and then interrupted Kim, saying, “What’s that?”

   “It’s starting to smell like snake piss in here Malfoy,” George said. “Better shove off or I’ll never get the stench from my clothes.”

   Malfoy scowled and shot one last glance at Kim before turning to continue his path down the train car. Kim frowned, confused by the entire encounter, and turned to take her seat so she could enjoy her chocolate frog.

   “You’re not Slytherin, are you?” Fred asked.

   “That would explain why we don’t know you,” said George.

   “What?” Kim asked.

   “Slytherin?” George repeated with raised eyebrows.

   “Slimy, snake-like, cousin loving?” Fred elaborated.

   “Excuse me?”

   “You sure you’re not a first year?” he said.

   “No, I’m not, I’m—”

   “Act like a first year,” George interrupted.

   “I’m not a first year, I’m—

   “A Slytherin spy!” Fred said, immediately followed by George, “Out with it!” And then Fred again, “We’ll never give up our secrets.”

   By this time they were leaning in quite close to Kim. She growled. “Would you shut up for one second! I’m not a slimy Slyther friend, or whatever you said. I’m not a first year. I just transferred here from America. I’m a third year, but this is my first year at Hogwarts.”

   They both made very long _oh_ sounds as they leaned back in their seats and nodded. “That explains it,” Fred said knowingly, as if he’d known it the whole time. Kim just frowned at him but as he started to smile at her she couldn’t help the smile that crept on her face in return.

   “Well, then if you’ve got any luck at all, you’ll be Gryffindor,” George said.

   “What is Gryffin…”

   “They’re the houses of course. There’s four, but only one that matters,” Fred explained, and then together they said, “ _Gryffindor._ ”

   “It’s really the best house there is, you see,” George said. Kim caught in a glance the girl sitting across from her rolling her eyes as she glared out the window. _Not a Gryffindor I guess,_ Kim thought as she smiled to herself.

   “They all stand for different things,” Fred continued, “But I won’t bore you with that. I’m sure someone will eventually.” As he said it the train began to slow down. Kim was surprised that they were there already. She supposed the boys had made the trip go by faster, but had it really gone by _that_ fast? But when she looked to their faces, they looked surprised as well. They looked out the window which was fogged and covered in the pouring down rain.

   “Did you do something to sabotage the train without me?” George asked Fred, sounding hurt. Kim looked at him in bewilderment, her face screwed up.

   “I would never!” Fred said back, sounding like the accusation was almost offensive.

   “So why are we stopping then?”

   They both stuck their heads out of the compartment door, looked both ways, and stuck it back in. The train came to a full stop with a jolt, sending Kim sliding forward with a squeal. Fred caught her arm, stopping her from landing face first.

   “Steady there,” he warned, as she pushed herself quickly back in her seat, Strix squawking unhappily as she dug her claws deeper into Kim’s shoulder for security. Then all the lamps went out, and the compartment as well as the entire train was completely black. Gasps ran through the air, but were soon swallowed up by the sounds of the raging storm that pushed past the train.

   “Has this ever happened before?” Kim asked quietly, her heart picked up slightly in pace though she was unafraid. The dark didn’t scare her.

   “Not in our time,” the boys both said.

   “Right now would be a perfect time to sneak into the front car,” Fred said with rekindled excitement in his tone.

   “What?” Kim asked incredulously.

   “You wanna go for it?” he said.

   “How long you think we’ve got before they turn the lights back on?” George pondered in response, sounding at least slightly more reasonable than his brother, but only marginally so.

   “What are you talking about, the front car?” Kim insisted.

   “There’s a secret front car, or so rumor has it. No one’s allowed to ride in it, and I plan to figure why,” one of the twins said, though Kim was having a hard time figuring out which of them was talking in the dark.

   “Probably because they keep stuff in there that they don’t want students messing around with,” Kim pondered allowed. “I mean this is one of the only practical ways to transport things between Hogwarts and anywhere else, right?”

   “ _Exactly!”_

   “I like the way this girl thinks.”

   “Well, let’s do it then, you coming with us or what?”

   Kim felt her heart truly pounding now. She wanted to go with them. Something about the boys’ lively spirit was drawing, like leaves to sunlight. But this was her first day, not even her first day yet at Hogwarts. Was she already going to drag herself into irreversible trouble?

   Evidently she had hesitated long enough, because she heard rustling as the boys sat back down in their seats, sounding jostled and their breaths coming in uneven. Kim looked out through the dim light, trying to see what they had seen in the hall. There was a dark figure peering in on them, cloaked and standing in the doorway to their compartment. Strix fluttered and cooed uncomfortably on Kim’s shoulder and Kim herself shrunk as her insides shriveled. She felt her skin grow cold, and her mind become empty and hallow.

   There, in the darkness of her heart she could see all her internal doubts and worries. She had little faith in herself, little belief that she would find friends at this school, that the prestigious English patrons of Hogwarts would care to associate themselves with her. She doubted her ability to make passing grades. She would be quickly found out as a fraud, a dimwitted girl mascaraing as a clever one. She could see herself in muggle school, back when she had struggled the most to do well. Her peers snickered at her as she stammered over the wrong answer to a simple equation. If she didn’t do well at Hogwarts, perhaps they would send her back there, back to muggle school where she would flounder and fail like before.

 _What’s happening to me?_ she wondered, gaping at the swallowing blackness, but most of her felt little will to care at all.

   But then she realized, and the realization helped overcome the drowning urge to give in to the cold emptiness. She climbed from the dark hollow that had been carved from her chest, and looked to Fred and George. They were looking similar to how she felt, gaping at the dark figure peering in on them.

   “It’s a dementor,” she said. “It should pass along without harming us. They’re intelligent. Mean, but they work for the government I think.”

   “F-… For the ministry you mean?” Fred managed to say. As Kim had predicted, the wispy death like figure shadowed away, moving down the car. _Why on Earth is there one of those damned things on this train?_ Kim wondered.

   “Yes,” she answered Fred after a moment’s distraction. “I think so. I don’t know what they’re doing here though. Still… They didn’t attack us, so we should be fine. There affect will wear off eventually.”

   “This is awful,” George muttered. Kim wished there was something she could do, and couldn’t help but feeling there was something. It was itching in the back of her mind, something she should remember but didn’t yet. She looked at her chocolate frog, turning it over in her hands. She didn’t much feel like having it now, but she opened it anyway, catching it before it could hop away and taking a small bight, merely a foot. Immediately the taste of the chocolate on her tongue reminded her. _Of course,_ she thought, the warmth spreading through her.

   “Here,” she said to George, handing the chocolate frog to him across the compartment. He looked the most down trodden out of all of them, and the frog was barely enough for two people as it was. She didn’t really need it anyway. She supposed being aware of the Dementor and their ability to suck the joy from the air like a fire sapping moisture from a room, had helped her combat the effects. She knew the Patronus spell was meant to defend against the Dementors, and that strong happy thoughts were also key to warding off their effects. Perhaps simply having this knowledge had helped her to hold on to more of herself than the others had managed.

   “What’s this for?” George asked, taking the frog but not eating it.

   “Chocolate can help cure the effects of the dementor if they’re mild enough. Have some, it should help take the edge of at least.”

   “Really?” he asked, looking a bit impressed, which pleased Kim immensely. He bit the head off the fog. “What about you?” he asked, his features lightening as the chocolate worked on him.

   “Don’t worry,” she said, shaking her head. As she said it the lights flickered back on. George handed the butt of the frog to his brother, who ate the last of it, leaving the girl in the corner to sulk. He shrugged at her and said sorry, but more in a way that suggested he wasn’t truly in the slightest.

   “How’d you know all that about the dementors?” Fred asked, leaning back in his seat and eyeing Kim inquiringly.

   Kim shrugged. “I figure they didn’t accept me into the best magic school in the world for nothing.”

   “Oh-ho,” Fred said, looking wide eyed at his brother. “This one’s got salt.”

   “And chocolate,” George added, a bit softer, to which the three of them laughed.


	3. Hogwarts Houses

Chapter 3

Hogwarts Houses

   Soon they were arriving at Hogsmeade station and all the students were filing off the train. Kim had now learned from her time on the train that Fred and George were from the Weasley family, a very large wizerding family that, as Kim was told by the twins, if she looked not very hard she would probably spot somewhere in the halls by their red hair. She also learned that the twins were Fifth years, but that they wouldn’t hold Kim’s junior status against her, or at least they would try not to.

   As they readied to exit the train, Fred and George helped Kim pry her luggage from the compartment, which was much of an improvement from having to do it herself, being that they stood at least six or seven inches taller than she at 5 feet 4 inches. She attempted to calm Strix back into her cage, but she refused.

   “Quite a bird ya’ got there,” Fred said, watching Kim curse at Strix to get in the cage.

   “You win,” she said, rolling her head and letting the owl fluff itself happily on her shoulder.

   “I dunno, it’s kinda cute,” George commented.

   “Thank you, George,” Kim said with emphasize, looking pointedly at Fred as she gathered her things and lead the way off the train. The boys followed her onto the platform. First years were being led off to take a boat across the lake, but everyone else was going a different way.

   “Come on, this way,” Fred said, waving a hand at Kim to follow. He brought her to a carriage lead by large black, drawn looking beats. Kim walked past the entrance to the carriage dropping her luggage and eyeing the horse-like creatures. They looked half dead, with curved beaks and skin hanging slack on gaunt bones. Their wings were like a bats with little worn holes from age or fighting in the webbing. _What are you?_ she wondered silently, her eyes moving over the creatures hungrily.

   George hung off the door to the carriage and looked at Kim oddly, and then at the beast. “Those dementors might’ve affected you more than you thought,” he said with a smirk. Kim frowned, not understanding what he meant. She looked back at the creatures and then at George’s vacant expression.

   “Of course!” she realized allowed. “Thestrals! They’re even more spooky in person.”

   “What?” George said, actual concern making its way into his warm brown eyes.

   “Oh, nothing, don’t mind me. I swear I’m not crazy, but you wouldn’t believe me if I told you, so… in ya’ go,” she said shooing him into the carriage. They rode the short distance up to the castle, all the while Fred and George discussed their devious plans for the year. Once they began filing into the castle, Kim thought she would follow the boys, who she was more than just beginning to like, and sit with them while they had the customary feast. But a voice called her name over the din of the crowd, so she turned.

   “You need to come with me as well,” said an older woman wearing a pointed velvet hat and dignified looking robes. She peered at Kim with light blue eyes over square spectacles.

   “Professor McGonagall,” Fred said, surprised.

   “What’s she want?” George finished his sentence.

   “I- I’ll catch up with you later?” Kim asked, unsure of herself and of the boys liking of her. But as she looked over her shoulder at them they smiled and nodded.

   “Definitely,” they both said, and bobbed off into the cowed. Kim followed Professor McGonagall and found that two other students of her age were also tailing her as well, looking just as baffled as she was. The first, a girl with wiry brown hair, looked very familiar to Kim though she couldn’t remember from where. The second was a boy with black messy hair and attractive green eyes peering out kindly behind round glasses.

   “Oh, it’s you,” the girl said with recognition. “From the pet shop!”

   “Oh!” Kim remembered, but couldn’t place a name still.

   “Hermione,” she reminded kindly, seeing Kim’s struggle to remember.

   “Right. Kim.”

   “Nice to see you again. This is my friend Harry.”

   “Nice to meet you,” Kim said with a smile.

   “Same to you,” the boy said back, but there was a faint tightness in his gaze, like he was expecting something unpleasant to come along with this greeting. Kim couldn’t imagine what it was.

   “Do either of you know what this is all about?”

   “No idea,” Harry said, shaking his dark locks, and Hermione didn’t really say anything. Kim just hummed and shrugged, because they were approaching McGonagall’s office anyway. Once within, she motioned for the three of them to sit down. They did so, Hermione and Kim on the stiff old couch and Harry on the arm chair beside it.

   “Professor Lupin sent an owl ahead to say that you were taken ill on the train, Potter,” McGonagall said. Kim glanced over to see Harry open his mouth to reply but hesitate and stammer, his face flushing slightly.

   “I’m fine,” he finally insisted. _Harry Potter,_ Kim thought, putting his two names together. _It sounds familiar…_

   “Madam Pomfrey will be the judge of that, but we’ll have to deal with that momentarily when she arrives. This needs to be taken care of quickly. They’ll be needing it in the main hall for the first years,” she said, mostly to herself, as she lifted a floppy black hat off her desk and stood, hurriedly moving toward them. She came to Kim and moved to place the hat on her head. Kim looked at Professor McGonagall somewhat alarmed, but mostly just with awkward uncertainty.

   “Don’t worry Miss Shimmers, there’s really nothing to it,” she said, placing the soft fabric on Kim’s head. The hat felt like it might wither apart it was so soft and perhaps decades old.

   “Merely sit still and clear your thoughts,” McGonagall continued. Kim wasn’t quite sure she was capable of clearing her thoughts, not when she had a thousand of them at the moment, and Strix hopping about excitedly on her shoulder.

 _“Hm,”_ drew out a long deep voice in her head, but it was alarmingly not her own. She startled and looked up at the hat above her. “ _Well, you’re here for your cleverness, are you not?”_

 _Am I supposed to talk to a hat?_ she thought incredulously.

_“And certainly you have the sarcasm for Ravenclaw as well. I think you’d do well there, through it’s not perfectly clear. You’d do well in Gryffindor too…”_

_Gryffindor?_

_“Yes, I see bravery… and brashness… but no, I think you’d be better suited for,”_ and then the hat really gave Kim a startle because it shifted on her head and said out loud, “Ravenclaw!”

   “Very good,” Professor McGonagall said, taking the hat from Kim’s head and hurrying to the door of her office. Leaning out she said, “Could you run this to the Great Hall? And hurry… Oh, Poppy! Come quick,” she called, and another older woman came into her office after her.

   “Madam Pomfrey, I’m fine,” Harry said again. “I really don’t need anything—”

   “Oh, it’s you, is it?” She began to inspect him, and Kim inferred that this woman must be the school nurse. “I suppose you’ve been doing something dangerous again?”

   “It was a dementor, Poppy,” said Professor McGonagall darkly as she came to stand behind her desk again. Kim looked back at Harry. So he saw the dementors too then. She felt bad for him. dementors were nasty things for those who weren’t well prepared for them. Even for those who were.

   “Setting dementors around the school,” Madam Pomfrey muttered as she felt Harry’s forehead. “He won’t be the last one who collapses. Yes, he’s all clammy. Terrible things, they are, and the effect they have on people who are already delicate—

   “I’m not delicate!”

   “Of course you’re not,” said Madam Pomfrey, but she didn’t sound like she really meant it. Kim felt bad for the boy, as she could see his pride was clearly hurt, thought there was no reason for it to be.

   “Don’t feel bad,” she said to him. “The dementors got to everybody. They effect different people differently, it’s the nature of the beast.” He glanced at Kim, giving her a flick of a smile. She wished she could say more, but it was clear she was interrupting business. She got the feeling Harry just wanted it to be over with as fast as possible anyway. He came across to her as a boy being swallowed by the center of the room, pulled into a whirlpool of too-muchness. As the nurse removed her hand from his forehead, it revealed and unusual scar to Kim’s view and she suddenly realized why the name Harry Potter sounded so familiar.

   “What does he need?” said Professor McGonagall. “Bed rest? Should he perhaps spend tonight in the hospital wing?”

   “I’m _fine_!” Harry finial snapped, standing, attempting to rip himself from the whirlpool center. Kim watched as he held his ground, appearing like he was fighting the urge to storm from the room entirely.

   “Well, he should have some chocolate, at the very least,” Madam Pomfrey said, still seeming as though she didn’t trust Harry’s diagnosis of himself.

   “I’ve already had some,” Harry said, pulling away from the nurse as she tried to peer in his eyes for some evidence of ailment. “Professor Lupin gave me some. He gave it to all of us.”

   “Did he, now?” said Madam Pomfrey, sounding impressed, even though to Kim’s knowledge this was no impressive act. Hadn’t she done the very same thing? “So we’ve finally got a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher who knows his remedies?”

   “Shouldn’t a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher know his remedies?” Kim said before she could think better of it. Both women’s eyes swiveled to Kim and she felt herself shrink slightly in her seat. To her relief, however, Professor McGonagall’s lips twisted up in a half smile. Her eyes drifted back to Harry.

   “Are you sure you feel all right, Potter?” she asked.

   Harry looked very tired of the question. “ _Yes.”_

   McGonagall was still staring at Harry, unsure. Kim swallowed, deliberating on whether it was really a good idea to speak again after her last venture. “If I may, if Harry already had chocolate, there’s really not much else to be done for him except to relax, try and be in a positive mood… Unless I’m wrong,” she said tentatively, looking up at Madam Pomfrey who gave an allowing look, tilting her head from side to side. “I’m just suggesting, if that’s the case… wouldn’t it be best that Harry be with friends? In my opinion, that’s the best remedy to an encounter with a Dementor. Better, even, than chocolate.”

   Professor McGonagall was eyeing Kim, but it wasn’t disapproving, much to Kim’s relief. She sighed again through her nose and looked back to Harry.

   “Very well. Kindly wait outside while I have a quick word with Miss Granger about her course schedule, then we can go down to the feast together.” Kim stood and followed Harry and Madam Pomfrey to the door.

   “Oh, and Miss Shimmers,” McGonagall said, her tone stern, freezing Kim in her progression toward the door. She looked back at the professor, expecting a rebuking for speaking out. “Keep up your studies. If you continue like that here at Hogwarts, you’re bound to go far.” She finished with a small, almost mischievous smile that made Kim smile back as well, nodding in thanks and following after Harry out the door. The nurse had already disappeared down the hall.

   “Thanks for that,” Harry said, nodding to the door behind them, “in there.”

   “Oh, no problem. I know what over protective mothers are like,” Kim said, laughing a bit awkwardly and shaking her head.

   Harry frowned slightly. “Professor McGonagall, she’s- she’s not my mother,” he said, confused.

   “No, no,” Kim said, putting her hand to her face and shaking her head. She tittered lightly. “I know that, I meant, she obviously cares about you. She’s just being protective.”

   Harry seemed oddly placated by this suggestion. “You think so?”

   Kim gave a dry chuckle, expecting what she said to be received with more confusion, but instead being met with what she could only perceive as surprise and perhaps gratitude. “Yeah,” she said. “Seems pretty obvious.”

   As the hallway went quit, Strix decided that it was an appropriate time to hope off Kim’s shoulder’s and start batting around Harry. At first he simply dodged out of her way, squinting but smiling a bit sheepishly at the bird.

   “Strix, what are you doing?” Kim scolded, reaching out her hand to try and entice the small bird to land on her arm again. But Strix had another idea, and that was to swoop down at Harry and peck him hard on the cheek.

   “Owe!” he said, steeping back this time and putting his hands on his cheek as he looked at Strix, bewildered and a bit put off.

   “Oh my gosh, Strix, what is _wrong_ with you,” she demanded waving at the bird, but it didn’t seem to matter. With one finial swoop, Strix was already gliding gracefully back down to perch contently on Kim’s shoulder. Kim looked at Strix and then back at Harry, who pulled his hand away to show a drop of blood on his cheek. Kim was momentarily so astounded she just stared at him with her mouth open.

   “I am so sorry,” she said to Harry, and then again to Strix, “What is _wrong_ with you?” She simply fluffed her feathers adorably as she adjusted her footing on Kim’s shoulder, looking pleased with herself.

   “I’m really sorry Harry, she’s never done that before, I had no idea… I really don’t know what that was all about—

   “It’s fine,” Harry said, a bit glumly, as he wiped the remnants of the blood from his cheek.

   Kim chewed on the inside of her lip. Harry’s hair had been pushed aside in all the commotion, revealing yet again, his thunderbolt scar.

   “So, erm…” Kim mumbled looking off down the hallway. “Sorry if this is rude. But… are you _the_ Harry Potter? The one who killed Lord Voldemort?”

   Harry gave a vaguely amused smile. “Yeah. I thought for a moment you didn’t recognize me.” Then he flinched. “That sounded awful- conceded.”

   “No, no,” Kim said, shaking her hands and smiling, “it doesn’t. I almost didn’t. Do you get recognized a lot?” Harry nodded. “I guess it’s not as popular a story, in America I mean. See, I’m a transfer student, 3rd year like you, but first year here.” The story was already becoming tiresome to recite.

   “Do they say Voldemort by his name in America too?”

   Kim shrugged. “What else would they call him?”

   Harry smirked. “I tend to agree, but… just fair warning, you’re bound to get all kinds of reactions that way. You might want to call him You-Know-Who if you want to avoid getting weird looks. And gasps.”

   “Oh. Thanks, yeah... I didn’t know that. Speaking of things I didn’t know, what happened to me in there, with the hat… I’m in a house now? Raven… Ravenclaw?”

   “Yeah. They really didn’t tell you much before you got here, did they?”

   “Not really, no,” Kim laughed.

   “I guess that’s not very different from how it was for my first year. Yeah, you’re in a house now, Ravenclaw. Hermione and I are in Gryffindor.”

   “Oh,” Kim said, disappointed. That was the same house as Fred and George. She wondered if she would ever even see them again. “That’s a shame. What are the houses even for?”

   “For points, and unity I guess… You didn’t have them in your old school?” Kim shook her head. “How’d you get rewarded for doing well?”

   Kim thought about it. “I suppose we didn’t, really. We more just got punished for doing badly. See, if you do well, you have the chance to go out into the world and possibly afford a comfortable living and a family. If you don’t do well… you’ll probably end up homeless or something terrible, so that’s the punishment, in effect.”

   Harry went wide eyed. “Sounds like a complete circus.”

   “Oh it is,” Kim said, nodding. They looked at each other for a moment and then laughed at the serious looks on their faces. It was then that Professor McGonagall came out of her office with Hermione behind her looking pleased. They all made their way to the great hall, where Kim had to go off to sit at the Ravenclaw table, denoted by the golden eagle banner hanging over it. She waved goodbye to her would-be friends and sat by herself at the Ravenclaw table, wishing now that she had told the sorting hat she wanted to be in Gryffindor, not that she believed it would’ve done her any good.

* * *

   Kim was off to bed after Professor Dumbledore gave a very mysterious and somewhat dark speech about what was forbidden at Hogwarts. Kim had already met Dumbledore, as it was part of her entrance application to have an interview with him. At first she had found him very intimidating, with his wizened features and slow, knowing turns of phrases. But soon Kim came to find herself rather fond of him, actually, and she hoped he of her as well. She was, however, a bit put off to find that Professor Kettleburn retired from Hogwarts suddenly, and would not be teaching Care of Magical Creatures. He was part of the reason the subject was so well renowned at Hogwarts compared to other schools, but the eruption of applause that burst from the Gryffindor table reassured Kim that the new professor must be renowned as well.

   Kim had made some conversation with some second year Ravenclaws at her table, but she still found herself down trodden about her friendship situation by the time she was waking the next morning for classes. She woke to the wind whistling around the tower windows, making an enchanting howl sound. Kim rolled out of bed to see that most of her roommates in the dormitory were still sleeping. They were probably all used to everything at Hogwarts by now, and in the Ravenclaw Tower. Kim had a rush of homesickness for her own bedroom, and for the familiar roads between her house and Retta’s. She wondered if Retta still missed her like she’d promised she would.

   The homesickness was quickly warmed, though, when Kim turned to look out the window beside her bead. From all the way up in the tower, there was a magnificent view for miles around. The rolling green hills in the distance, the dark of the Forbidden Forest, the lake. Kim got dressed into her robes since it was already morning, and she didn’t have enough time to get any substantial sleep if she tried now. She normally wasn’t much of a morning person, but today was her first day of classes, and who knew what excitement it would hold.

   After much convincing, Strix allowed Kim to leave the dormitory without her, though she refused to go in her cage. The bird was certainly living up to her reputation at the shop for being ornery, but Kim couldn’t deny that she liked her. Mostly because she was also living up to her reputation of being clever. In the time she’d owned Strix, she had not once been locked in her cage for more than the hour on Kim’s way to the train station, but the bird had never soiled on the floor or anywhere else besides the papers at the bottom of her cage, or outside when she flew off in the night to catch unsuspecting prey. Kim was fine with this arrangement.

   Kim didn’t dally in the common room, hung with bronze silk with a domed ceiling of stars. The night before Kim had asked about them, and had been told they were painted on, but they glistened like the real night sky. She assumed it was some kind of magical enchantment, or perhaps just a skilled painter with magic paint. After all, the dozens of paintings she passed along the way were certainly lifelike, bidding her a good morning and reminding her approvingly that the early bird catches the worm.

   When she got to the Great Hall, her heart did fall, however, despite her efforts to keep it up. Fred and George were just sitting down at a table together, and Kim would’ve liked very much to go sit with them. And she didn’t see any real rule denoting that she shouldn’t. There were no banners on the tables this morning, and the hall was rather unceremonial compared to the night before. But still, from observation she could tell she was meant to sit with other Ravenclaws. There was a gaggle of students to her left that seemed unquestionably Slytherin gathered around Malfoy, and from what she could tell, all the other students were sitting with those from their own house as well. So she dutifully walked to a table that was empty and sat down with a sigh. She looked to the spread of scrambled eggs and toast before her and started to reach for a plate.

   “What on Earth are you doing over here?” came a familiar voice that startled her. Fred had come to lean one arm against the table to her right, which of course meant George was…

   “You can’t be eating all alone,” came another voice on her opposite side. Swiveling her head around she saw George with his arms crossed and propped on the table beside her, leaning over but both of them still standing like they didn’t intend to stay.

   “I was just about to have breakfast,” Kim said dumbly, not sure what else she was supposed to say. She was embarrassed that she didn’t have any Ravenclaw friends to eat with, and she hopped they weren’t going to rub it in. She mentally prepared herself for that possibility all the same, though, knowing them.

   “We don’t bight you know,” George said.

   “Usually,” Fred added, and winked, much to Kim’s surprise. She hopped she wasn’t blushing, but she wasn’t sure so she looked back at the plate she had picked up and put it back down on the pile.

   “But I’m not Gryffindor.”

   “We know,” they both said.

   “But I thought you said…”

   “You see, Fred had a thought-,” George said, and Fred picked up where he left off.

   “That we could make use of you after all. Having friends in high places if you know what I mean,” he said, nodding knowingly like this should make sense to Kim. She was starting to stand up, because she felt like that was what they were asking her to do, but she paused, looking at him blankly.

   “Get it?” Fred said, and when Kim continued to stare blankly he jutted a thumb up, “Ravenclaw Tower of course! Friends in high places! Honestly.”

   “Oh uh, right,” Kim stammered, still working it out in her head as she stepped out from the bench and started for the other table where the twins had been sitting before.

   “You see,” George explained, “we figured it’s time we expand our horizons.”

   “Yeah. We already know everything there is to know about Gryffindor.”

   “And admittedly getting into the common rooms of the other houses is difficult, even for us,” said George.

   “Ah,” Kim said, drawing it out as she sat down between them at the table. “And that’s where I come in.”

   “Exactly,” they both said. Kim wasn’t sure how she felt about being inducted into one of their schemes, and an _unhatched_ scheme at that, one that hadn’t even come into their minds yet. Who knew what kind of trouble these two could land her in. At the same time, it excited her to no end.

   Kim served herself breakfast and started to nibble, though it was hard to have an appetite past the nerves of first day of class, and with Fred and George bantering on either side of her. Being between them was entirely rambunctious, their elbows skidding absentmindedly against her’s and their arms soring past her face as they reached for another stab of bacon, like they had already inducted her as part of their tribe. _Is a bight of chocolate all it takes to impress you two?_ she wanted to say, but she was too pleased with their newly founded friendship, and uncertain of its fragility that she wouldn’t risk joking about it yet.

   Then Harry sat down next to George to Kim’s right, much to her surprise and satisfaction.

   “Oh, hey Harry,” Kim said happily, leaning past George and waving. Harry was scowling, but he forced a lighter expression when he saw Kim.

   “Hi Kim. What are you doing here, didn’t you get placed in Ravenclaw?”

   At this, Kim started to stammer. So it was as she’d thought, it _was_ unusual for houses to mingle. She tried to act like the question didn’t throw her, but she couldn’t help her expression from falling.

   “I did but- well, Fred and…” she muttered

   “You’ve already met Harry?” George asked, ignoring Harry’s question like it was totally inconsequential.

   Kim nodded. “And Hermione,” she said, nodding to her as she sat down across from her with a boy domed in equally red hair as the twins.

   “Ah, then you haven’t met Ronald,” Fred said, gesturing to the red haired boy.

   “A bit odd isn’t it,” he said with a squint at Fred, “Intermingling with other houses?”

   At this Kim felt her insides start to shrivel. Perhaps she should just go. It was clear this was an exclusive party, and she simply was not invited.

   “Ron, don’t be rude!” Hermione chastised, but Ron looked like he didn’t get it. “Kim is a new student, she hasn’t got any friends yet. She transferred. Try and be a bit less of a brut, would you? Sorry about him, Kim, really, he’s a bit bearish at times, but he means well.”

   “Bearish?” he asked incredulously. “Well, she’s right, I didn’t mean it like that,” he then said to Kim, looking a bit sheepish.

   “New third-year course schedules,” Fred said, pulling them off the pile where they were sitting a bit to Kim’s left. They were the Gryffindor schedules of course, but Kim had already picked up hers from the common room earlier that day. She was excited about a number of her classes this year. In total they were Defense Against the Dark Arts, Care of Magical Creatures, Concealment of Magical Creatures, Potions, Herbology, Transfiguration, History of Magic, Astronomy, and Charms.

   “What’s up with you, Harry?” George asked as he handed Harry his schedule. He was following Harry’s gaze to where Malfoy was pretending to faint with added melodrama. There was a group of Slytherins around him laughing and shooting snide looks in Harry’s direction.

   “Malfoy,” Ron said, like it was a swear word rather than a name.

   “That little git,” George said, but it wasn’t really with malice. He was looking calmly at Harry. “He wasn’t so cocky last night when the dementors were down at our end of the train. Came running into our compartment, didn’t he, Fred?”

   Without missing a beat, “Nearly wet himself,” Fred added to the story, throwing a glair at Malfoy. Kim frowned, not sure what Fred and George saw that she didn’t. She certainly didn’t doubt it was a possible reaction to the dementor’s inspection of the train, but when had this happened that she’d missed? She looked at George with a frown and he gave her a knowing wink while the other’s weren’t looking. Kim’s features shifted from bewildered, to knowing, to impressed. _Of course,_ she thought. _They’re making it up. They’re making it up for Harry’s sake. That’s… surprisingly kind, actually._

   “I wasn’t too happy myself,” said George, still in that slightly gentle tone. It wasn’t quite _gentle,_ Kim thought. Gentle would mean he was speaking in a soft or fragile way, almost speaking down to Harry which would certainly set him off. No, rather it was simply calm and reassuring. Something about it made even Kim feel more relaxed, even though she knew it was meant for Harry. “They’re horrible things, those dementors…”

   “Sort of freeze your insides, don’t they?” said Fred.

   “You didn’t pass out, though, did you?” Harry said in a low voice.

   “Forget it, Harry,” George said. “Dad had to go out to Azkaban one time, remember, Fred? And he said it was the worst place he’d ever been, he came back all weak and shaking… They suck the happiness out of a place, dementors. Most of the prisoners go mad in there.”

   “Exactly, Harry,” Kim agreed. “He might act big now, but they affect everyone who’s got a sole.”

   “If it weren’t for Kim here, Fred and I would’ve been in pretty had shape ourselves afterwards,” George added. “Did ‘ya know chocolate helps, of all things?”

   “Anyway, we’ll see how happy Malfoy looks after our first quidditch match,” Fred said. “Gryffindor versus Slytherin, first game of the season, remember?”

   At this, Kim perked up. “Quidditch!” she said, realizing. “When is that, I can’t wait!”

   “That’s the spirit!” the boys said together with excited faces. Having them on either side of her speaking at the same time was like having surround sound Wesley effects, and it boggled her brain a bit.

   “We don’t have quidditch at my old school,” Kim explained.

   “What?” Ron exclaimed, like this was the worst crime imaginable. The unchewed half of biscuit that was hanging out of his mouth fell to his plate with the shock.

   “Yeah, I mean there are teams in the country, professional teams, but they aren’t any good,” she laughed. “Not compared to Europe anyway. So I’ve never been to a game, never seen one at all actually. I don’t know much about the sport.”

   “You’ve got to be joking,” Ron said, more audible this time because he’d swallowed more biscuit. “What do you do for _fun_?”

   Kim laughed. “I don’t know. I’ve only been a witch for two years… well, I’ve known I was a witch for a long time, but I’m muggle born so…”

   “Oh, me too!” Hermione said excitedly. “Don’t worry, most of the people who care about that sort of thing are in Slytherin.” Kim nodded thankfully. Perhaps that was one merit to the house system she hadn’t thought of yet. She remembered a few instances where she’d wished there was an easier way to avoid the purists at her old school. It hadn’t always been pleasant, even in her first year at the meager age of 11. Kim thought about this and listened to Hermione and Ron argue about class schedules while she both dreaded and anticipated breakfast being over. On one hand, she would have to depart the safety of her friends, especially Fred and George who seemed unintimidated by most, and bothered by none. On the other, she was excited to start class…

   “Wait, you all have Divination first period today?” Kim asked, catching on something she’d heard.

   “That’s right,” Hermione said, “with Professor Trelawney.”

   “So do I, look!” she said excitedly, handing over her schedule.

   “Oh, how wonderful. It looks like we have a few classes together,” she said, handing the schedule back so Kim could fold it into her robes.

   “But, Harry, I thought you said the houses were here to give students a group for them to go to class with.” Harry just sort of shrugged, but Ron turned his head to the side like he was turning over a thought.

   “I’m not quite sure how it works, to be honest,” he said.

   “There’s a surprise,” Fred said under his breath, but Ron expertly ignored him.

   “But I think you have the majority of your classes with just your house. But some of the classes, the larger ones usually, are mixed with two or three houses from time to time. Especially now that we’re taking more classes and electives and what not. And _some_ of us have impossible schedules all together, so who even knows, really,” he said, directing a pointed gaze and Hermione who pretended not to notice.

   “We’d better go, look, Divination’s at the top of North Tower. It’ll take us ten minutes to get there,” Ron said to the group. Kim smiled at this, feeling suddenly like she belonged with something for the first time since she could remember. Ever since she’d become a witch she’d felt terribly displaced. Not part of the wizarding world, not part of the muggle world either. She had made a few friends, but all of them had groups of closer friends that she wasn’t a part of. She couldn’t know for sure yet, but she thought maybe, even though the odds were against her, this group would accept her among their ranks.

   “Ron, what’s your last name?” Kim asked as they walked toward the exit of the Great Hall. She had just remembered something the boys had told her on the train about the large population of siblings they had at Hogwarts, and that spotting them was usually easy.

   “Weasley, why?” he said, like it was obvious what his name was.

   “Fred and George are your brothers then?”

   “Yes, of course. Honestly, you’d think I was chopped meat or something,” he muttered, though Kim didn’t really understand what he was sore about.

 


	4. A High Flying First Day

Chapter 4

A High Flying First Day

   After a lot of stairs and getting lost, they eventually made their way to the North Tower. An over excited painting of a knight helped them find their way, but Kim couldn’t say she wasn’t grateful. Especially since it earned her a valuable piece of knowledge for the future when she didn’t have previous Hogwarts students around to help her find her way; paintings can be asked for directions. 

   When they entered the Divinations classroom, it was silky, smoky, and left Kim feeling somewhat hazy as she looked around at the many tea cups and glass ornaments around the room. Professor Trelawney gave them an overly dramatic entrance that left Kim interested, yet skeptical of the whole subject of divination. Or perhaps she was merely skeptical of Professor Trelawney herself. Still, there was some part of Kim that was drawn to the idea of an inexact science such as divination. It seemed more an art really, something you have to feel out rather than learn or know. After the introduction Hermione and Kim grouped together around a table to the side of Harry and Ron at their table.

   They were attempting Tessomancy; the art of reading tea leaves. It was Kim’s turn first to try and decipher the pile of brown mush and effectively read Hermione’s future. Hermione herself was looking a bit uncomfortable, with a slight purse in her lips and a bend in her brow.

   “Okay,” Kim sighed, looking over the mush and referencing the book. “Well, this one’s pretty obviously the closing eye. The closing eye usually means illness- sorry.” She looked back into the cup. “This here… I’d hate to think, but,” he squinted at it and then looked at the book to be sure she was right. But it was unmistakable. She still didn’t know if she believed it was true, but she had to give it her best work. This _was_ a class after all.

   “The cross,” she finally said apologetically. “Trials and Suffering. But, if I’m really looking at this, the closing eye doesn’t always mean illness, it sometimes mean’s fatigue… Hold on a second.”

   Kim read over the detailed description of the two symbols and tried to interpret what they might mean in relation to one another, and in relation to Hermione.

   “Well, I think this makes the most sense. The Cross can either mean suffering or trials of some kind, some kind of challenge. So I think this tea cup is saying that you’re going to be tried, there’s going to be a- a time of great challenge to you… and it’s going to cause you fatigue. Or at least that’s my best guess?”

   To Kim’s horror, Professor Trelawney had come to stand behind her and was looking into the cup over her shoulder. She walked around Kim and looked her up and down.

   “Very good, my dear,” she said in her wispy voice. “Couldn’t have said it better myself. How fascinating, you’re connectedness… it’s almost as if you have some kind of direct line to--”

   “May I try?” Hermione interrupted, much to Kim’s surprise and dismay. In the time she’d known her, she didn’t think Hermione had ever taken the slightest bit of sharpness with anyone, and Kim couldn’t help wanting to know what direct link she had to… to what? But Trelawney rolled her hand at Hermione to give Kim’s cup a go, so she picked it up and peered in, looking down her nose. She stared like that for a long time.

   “Well, I-” she stammered, seeming ruffled. She fidgeted in her seat and shifted the cup around a bit, frowning as her lips tightened into a line. But evidently this was boring Professor Trelawney, or there was something more interesting going on at Harry’s table, because she whirled her attention towards him keenly with no warning at all.

   “Let me see that, my dear,” she said to Ron, who was presumably attempting to predict Harry’s future with his cup. He handed it over to Professor Trelawney as everyone in the class watched silently. Most were probably expecting something foreboding, as from what Kim could tell, the professor had a fondness for bad omens.

   “The falcon… my dear, you have a deadly enemy,” she said, rotating the teacup.

   “But everyone knows _that_ ,” Hermione whispered, but Kim was fairly certain she intended Trelawney to hear here, which she no doubt did. “Well, they do,” she said, her tone a bit higher now that the attention was shifted to her. “Everybody knows about Harry and You-Know-Who.”

   Professor Trelawney made no response, merely shifting her gaze back to the teacup and twisting it again in her hands. “The club,” she said ominously. “An attack. Dear, dear, this is not a happy cup…”

   “I thought that was a bowler hat,” said Ron sheepishly.

   “The skull… danger in your path, my dear…” Her large eyes shifted over the contents of the teacup once more, and then she gasped, followed by a frightened cry. Somewhere in the classroom china broke as a clumsy student named Neville broke another teacup, and Professor Trelawney lowered herself with shaking knees into a nearby armchair.

   “My dear boy… my poor, dear boy… no… it is kinder not to say… no… don’t ask me…”

   “What is it, Professor?” said a boy who Kim didn’t know. Students began to stand, alarm clear in their faces, and curiosity as well. But Kim was mostly worried. Whether or not this prediction was accurate, was it wise to pester Trelawney for it? If Harry was told a terrible prediction, wouldn’t it just hang on his mind? And if it was true, if something terrible was going to happen to Harry, another terrible thing to add to his terrible list, would he be able to do anything to stop it? If not, wouldn’t it be better to let him live in peace until it came to pass? Perhaps that was the diviner’s curse. Not to simply know the future, but to _bear_ it.

   But against Kim’s better judgment, and before she could do anything to stop it, Professor Trelawney was speaking in a trembling voice. “My dear… you have the Grim.”

   “The what?”

   “The Grim, my dear, the Grim!” cried Professor Trelawney, who frankly looked a bit miffed that her dramatic reveal had been lost on a good portion of the class, including Harry to whom the reveal was meant. “The giant, spectral dog that haunts churchyards! My dear boy, it is an omen, one of the worst omens, of _death_!”

   And there it was. The words were loose, out in the air with nothing Kim could do to snatch them up and stuff them back into Trelawney’s gaping yapper. Kim crossed her arms, deciding then, that whether or not the woman was of value at Divination, she wasn’t someone Kim liked.

   “ _I_ don’t think it looks like a Grim,” Hermione said from beside Professor Trelawney. She’d dropped the teacup beside her on a coffee table to properly clasp her heart with her hands, so Hermione had scooped it up and was now peering into it speculatively. Kim couldn’t help but let out a snort, turning away to hide her snickering.

   “You’ll forgive me for saying so, my dear,” Kim heard Trelawney say behind her, “but I perceive very little aura around you. Very little receptivity to the resonance of the future.”

   “It looks like a Grim if you do this,” said another student who was entirely screwing up his face, “but it looks more like a donkey from here.”

   “When you’ve all finished deciding whether I’m going to die or not!” Harry said suddenly, his jaw tight. There he was in the center again, and Kim could see him drowning in that dreaded whirlpool. But how to fish him out?

   “I think we will leave the lesson here for today,” said Professor Trelawney, sounding either tired or foggily mysterious, Kim wasn’t quite sure. “Yes… please pack away your things…”

   Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Kim left the classroom after quietly packing up their things, all the while Kim mulled over what she could say to Harry to mend the sullied mess Professor Trelawney had made. They were all headed off to Transfiguration, while Kim had Potions instead.

   “Harry, you can’t worry over something that hasn’t happened yet. Besides, I’m not even sure Trelawney can be trusted. She seems a bit… showy to me.” Kim offered, though it felt like a paled attempt when faced with the fact that Harry was just told he was going to die soon. Harry just gave a tight smile, which was really more of a grimace, though she could see in his eyes some part of him appreciated her attempt. She didn’t have the time to think of something else even if she could, because she had to go her separate way to head off to the dungeon.

* * *

   After Potions, Kim finally did have Transfigurations, though the class was again entirely made up of Ravenclaws, as the last had been. She picked the first seat that was a comfortable distance from the board and then wanted to kick herself. She should have looked around to try and sit beside someone who looked friendly. As it was, she looked to her left to see a familiar looking girl with shoulder length silky strait black hair and side swooping bangs. She had dark tan skin and a wide nose. She looked over at Kim and smiled, which made her remember why she was familiar. She had the bed next to Kim in Ravenclaw Tower.

   “Hey,” the girl said, who Kim raced through her mind to try and remember the name of.

   “Hi,” Kim said back with a tight smile. Clemon felt right, but she wasn’t confident enough to use it out loud. “You any good at transfiguration?”

   She shrugged. “Yeah, I’m pretty good. I mean, I got perfect marks last year, but this year might be harder,” she said in an allowing tone. Kim had never gotten perfect marks in anything except creature studies, and that was because creature studies was easy. Creatures were fascinating! She would read the whole text book just for fun, because who wouldn’t want to know all about magical creatures? But charms? Transfiguration? Kim grimaced, thinking perhaps she’d been sorted into the wrong house. She wished she was as effortlessly smart as her classmates seemed to be, but she simply wasn’t.

   Once the introduction to the class was over, she and Clemon paired up and started working on some basic spells as review of what they should already know from the previous year.

   “This stuff is babying. It’s for the other houses,” Clemon complained.

   “What do you mean?” Kim asked. Clemon looked at her like she must be joking, but then dawned an expression of realization.

   “Right, I forget that you’re a transfer student. So unusual. Anyway, Ravenclaws are the smartest. You’re lucky you got sorted here. It means you’re already a mark above the rest. After all, the reason we’re here is to learn, right? Not be show offs, or whatever else.” She shook her head and rolled her eyes lightly and then flicked her wand, casting a perfect transfiguration of a potted plant into a small bell.

   “I know a Gryffindor that’s pretty smart,” Kim reasoned allowed, screwing up her face so she could focus on her spell.

   “Who?” Clemon asked, as if she found it highly improbable.

   “Hermione.”

   “Hermione?” Clemon said the name like it was already beneath her, just by its existing. “Well, I don’t know who that is. I suppose, statistically speaking, there’s a chance there are a few exceptions to the rule, but I doubt it.”

   Kim just shrugged. She herself didn’t see how the house lines could possibly be drawn that thick. If they were, Hermione would be here, and Kim would be there for certain. No, Kim felt sure there was something more to it than that, something deeper inside a person that the sorting had dove into. She had felt it, probing her mind, cool and knowing. What had it been looking for, she wondered?

   “Anyway, the point is, you’re in the right house. Ravenclaw is the best house if you want to do well in school, which,” she said with a snicker, “I mean, why wouldn’t you?”

   “Right,” Kim said, forcing a laugh back though she wasn’t exactly sure she caught the joke.

   “That’s why I find this _review_ so annoying. I think the other houses should have to come back to school early so that they can do the review they need, and we can just jump right into things.”

   Kim wasn’t really finding the review hard, but she was grateful for it, so she couldn’t say she agreed. On the other hand, she had come from another school entirely, so perhaps she was simply glad to review what she was supposed to know, checking that her knowledge base was in fact the same. So instead of arguing, she simply shrugged and said, “I guess so.”

   “In fact, I think the entire school system should be merit based, not age based. Think about it. Why is it based on age? Some of us Ravenclaws could probably graduate in half the time it takes a Gryffindor. Or some Hufflepuffs for that matter,” she snickered.

   “Are Hufflepuffs… stupid?” Kim asked.

   Clemon sighed like Kim was taking the fun out of everything. “Not _necessarily._ They’re hard workers and all… it’s just… well, here in Revenclaw we believe in ‘work smarter not harder’. In Hufflepuff…”

   “Ah, I see,” Kim said, thinking she understood what Clemon was hedging at. _They’re slow,_ Kim thought, though she still had a hard time believing anyone was _one_ thing, or _all_ the things that went along with each house. But Kim didn’t want to bring up her thoughts with Clemon. They had managed to hold a conversation throughout the entire class, and she was dorm mates with Kim. Even though Clemon was a bit of a sour girl, Kim thought she might make a decent enough friend, given some time.

   Now that transfiguration was over, it was time for the class Kim had been anticipating all day, Care of Magical Creatures. This class was easy to find, and she didn’t once have to ask for directions. She made her way out of the castle and spotted students heading for an already gathering formation around a small hut. She hurried across the lawn, greeting the warm sun against her face and sucking in as much fresh air as she could. She didn’t mind the crowded, book-dust and damp stone smell of the castle, but the fresh air was welcome in her lungs too.

   When she reached the congregation, a large, no _giant_ man with wiry black hair all around his face and head was moving to address the class. “C’mon, now, get a move on!” he boomed in a scratchy deep voice. “Got a real treat for yeh today! Great lesson comin’ up! Everyone here? Right, follow me!”

   Kim bounced with excitement as they followed the large man around the edge of the forest. To add to the perfect afternoon, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were walking nearby. She sneaked her way over to them through the crowed.

   “Hey guys!” she said, not bothering to shield her excitement. To her pleasure, when they looked over and waved at her they looked excited too.

   “Everyone gather ‘round the fence here!” called the Professor, which Kim still didn’t know the name of. She thought then that it was odd he hadn’t introduced himself at the start of class. “That’s it, make sure yeh can see, now, firs’ thing yeh’ll want ter do is open yer books—”

   “How?” Malfoy demanded from the left side of the crowd.

   “Eh?”

   “How do we open our books?” Malfoy repeated. Kim couldn’t deny that this was a legitimate question, though she didn’t much like Malfoy since she’d learned about his bullying of Harry. Kim had tried a few times since she’d gotten the book to figure it out herself, but hadn’t managed, and she couldn’t see how anyone else was supposed to. She wrestled out her wriggling book, which she had re-fixed shut with a rope spell, _Incarcerous_. It had taken her a few tries, but now a magical rope bound the book securely.

   “That was clever,” Hermione commented under her breath, noticing Kim’s charm use. Most other students had used belts or binder clips.

   “Oh,” Kim said with a tittering laugh. “Thank you.” Beaming now, she looked up at the professor.

   “Hasn’- hasn’ anyone bin able ter open their books?” he said, seeming almost heart broken by the idea. “Yeh’ve got ter _stroke_ ‘em,” said Hagrid, as though it were obvious. “Look.” 

   He demonstrated by taking Hermione’s book and ripping off the binding. Running his giant hand along the spine, the angry book slowed in its snapping, calming, and then ceasing entirely. The book now lay open in his hands, readable and quite.

   “Oh, how silly we’ve all been!” Malfoy sneered. “We should have _stroked_ them! Why didn’t we guess!”

   “I- I thought they were funny,” the professor said uncertainly to Hermione. Suddenly Kim felt terrible for the lumbering man and got an overwhelming urge to kick Malfoy in the groin.

   “Oh, tremendously funny!” said Malfoy. “Really witty, giving us books that try and rip our hands off!”

   How was it he was able to be so snide to a teacher like that? Kim felt her fists balling and anger boiling in her stomach. Malfoy was a horrid boy, and he was _ruining_ what was meant to be a great afternoon. Kim felt the kind of anger that didn’t allow her mouth to stay closed bubbling up in her chest.

   “Maybe if you weren’t such a frightened little boy, you wouldn’t be so bothered by snapping _book,_ ” Kim retorted. It wasn’t much of an insult, pretty basic really, but it was the first thing that came to her mind. And surprisingly, it was more effective than she could have imagined.

   Malfoy practically reeled back in surprise, eyes darting about to find who could have possibly hurled such an assault at his slimy blond head. His gaze finally found Kim and narrowed, his lips tightening, like he was winding up to spit something poisons at her. But nothing about Malfoy was intimidating. She could see beyond him. If he was truly a threat, a pathetic insult to his manliness like the one she’d hurled at him wouldn’t ruffle him. As it was, he was more than ruffled, his very core was offended. Because, at his core, there was nothing Malfoy was more afraid of than being found out as a small, gutless whelp, so he wore this large brutish mask of over confidence to keep his smallness hidden in the shadows.

   This analyses came quick to Kim. She’d met his type before. Her mind turned over his likely responses while he mustered up the courage to speak.

   “How dare you speak to me that way? Who do you even think you are? If my father—”

   “Your father means nothing to me. He has no power over me.”

   Kim saw the slight waver in Malfoy’s eye, almost invisible, but there none the less. She must’ve hit another soft spot. Her heart thundering in her ears, she took a step forward.

   “I’m not afraid of you Malfoy. Of you, or your father. You see, where I come from, your name means nothing.”

   His lips tightened and trembled as he dawned a look of pure disgust. Kim smiled. She had won this argument. He would come up with something pathetic to say, most likely, but she would ignore it. She turned around and started walking back to the others.

   “We’ll see about _that,_ ” he said.

_Right on cue,_ Kim thought with an airy chuckle, stopping to stand beside Ron, who looked wide eyed and gapping at her. It was quite for a moment as most of the students around Kim, many of them Gryffindor, gawked. It was at this point that Kim’s stomach started to squirm and her arms felt hot, but she forced her features to remain neutral.

   “Righ’,” the Professor began, looking around the clearing awkwardly. “So- so yeh’ve got yer books…” He seemed to be having a hard time recollecting himself, and Kim felt a bit bad for disrupting the class as she did.

   “What’s his name, again?” Kim whispered to Ron, who was still struggling for neutrality in his features.

   “Hagrid,” he said.

   “Why didn’t he introduce himself?” Kim asked, shaking her head like it was a bit funny.

   “Probably because he’s nervous,” Hermione explained, leaning over. Kim glanced over to where Hagrid was still muttering and trying to collect himself.

   “I kind of gathered that. But why?”

   “This is the first class he’s ever taught. He’s a great guy, it’s just… well he can be a bit… scattered.”

   Just then there was a thunderous sound that seemed to reverberate through the ground. Looking over, Kim saw that Hagrid had gone to the other side of the fence that went through the clearing they stood in. He was leading a trail of massive creatures behind him by giant leashes. Kim’s eyes went wide as she realized what she was looking at. Gleaming silver feathers, massive strong talons, and piercing orange eyes.

   “Hippogriffs,” Kim breathed, a mystified smile coming across her features, like that of someone who had drank a potent love potion. “I never thought I would see one of these in real life. Pictures just don’t do them justice.” Her voice was still breathy, and she was already inching closer to the fence where the Hippogriffs now stood on the other side. She was hesitant though, because she was no fool. These were dangerous creatures.

   “Beau’iful, arn’ they?” Hagrid asked the class, and Kim nodded eagerly, her fingers clasped before her chest. She wanted to get closer, but she couldn’t imagine they, third year students with no training, would be allowed the opportunity of a hands on experience. That would just be too good to be true.

   “So, if yeh wan’ ter come a bit nearer-” Hagrid motioned to the class. Kim took a few more steps forward so she was now leaning eagerly against the fence. She realized, glancing over her shoulder, that the rest of the class had backed off quite a bit, and save for Harry, Ron, and Hermione, didn’t seem to have any intention of coming forward at all. _It’s probably better,_ Kim thought. _If my memory serves me correctly, hippogriffs are some of the most ornery of creatures, and extremely dangerous if approached when not properly trained._

   “Now, firs’ thing yeh gotta know abou’ hippogriffs is, they’re proud. Easily offended, hippogriffs are. Don’t never insult one, ‘cause it might be the last thing yeh do. Yeh always wait fer the hippogriff ter make the firs’ move.” All of this was jogging Kim’s memory of her previous lesson, brief as it was, on hippogriffs.

   “Isn’t politeness the essential rule with hippogriffs?” she asked. She realized she probably should have raised her hand but was too enwrapped in the lesson to bother, and Hagrid didn’t seem to care.

   “Why, tha’s correct,” he said, sounding pleased, eyes now solely on Kim.

   “You have to… approach carefully, and bow. Right?”

   “Well mark me stars and call me surprised,” Hagrid said with a chuckle. “Someone’s been doin’ they’re homework!”

   Kim smiled sheepishly. “Magical Creatures is my favorite subject.”

   “Is it now? Ya’ want ter go first?”

   “First?” Kim asked, eyes wide with unknowing. Hagrid just nodded. “First for what?”

   “Well ‘ta pet ‘im a’ course!”

   With this Kim swallowed hard, her stomach jumping and tossing around in her chest. She took a shallow breath and pulled herself over the fence and onto the other side. Her palms were sweaty and her knees shaking, but she couldn’t very well say she _didn’t_ want to go first, now could she? Certainly, she’d rather someone else go first, just so she wasn’t. But she just made a big show of telling Malfoy off, and she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of looking scared. And she’d just said this was her favorite subject, which by far it was. So what was she waiting for?

   “Now, this’n here is called Buckbeak,” Hagrid said, untying one of the hippogriff’s chains and taking off its collar. It was loose now. If Kim offended it, it could probably kill her. _Better be on my best behavior, then,_ she though nervously. Everyone on the other side of the fence was watching intently, probably waiting for Kim, the new kid, the American, to show that she wasn’t worth her salt after all. She let out a long breath as steady as she could.

   Buckbeak’s eyes met hers. They were as warm as fire. She felt it was imperative to hold his gaze. She needed to show to him that she was unafraid. That they were equals, but that she meant him no harm. She drew in another careful breath.

   “Tha’s a good job, now, good eye contact,” Hagrid encouraged in a hushed voice. “Now go ahead an’ give ‘em a bow.”

   Kim, as gracefully as she could muster with her heart slamming against her throat, arched into a long, deep bow. She stared at the ground and watched Buckbeak’s toes with keen eyes for any sign of movement. Any flick of motion that wasn’t dedicated to the hippogriff leaning into his own bow would be Kim’s signal to back off, to abandon mission, to hope and pray she didn’t end this day with a fearsome beak in her throat.

   Kim caught movement and she looked up, unable to resist the urge to check and make sure she wasn’t about to be attacked. Much to her relief, Buckbeak was lowering himself onto one knee, and even more graceful than Kim could have ever thought imaginable, he was bowing his great silver head to her.

   “Well done!” Hagrid said, clapping his hand, and patting her on the shoulder. “Wha’ did yeh say yer name was, young lady?”

   “Kim Shimmers,” she answered with a smile as Buckbeak rose back up onto his feet before her.

   “Well, that was a impressive firs’ try! Never seen it done more perfect, to be honest. Now go ahead an give ‘em a pet, you earned it.”

   With a beaming grin, Kim moved forward and tentatively reached her fingers to press against Buckbeak’s neck. His feathers were so soft and silky, they almost made Kim feel guilty for rubbing her grubby fingers along their downy surface. She immediately flipped her hand over so the back of her hand could stoke his neck, softer and less oily feeling against the comparatively cloud-like surface. Buckbeak seemed to like this, for he nuzzled his head toward her, making Kim giggle happily. Some of her classmates were clapping, which she felt wasn’t necessary, and made her blush and shrug into herself a bit.

   “Harry, yeh wanna give it a try,” Hagrid encouraged. Harry looked a bit taken aback by the offer, but his gaze shifted to Kim who nodded at him. He climbed over the fence and stood a few feet from Buckbeak. Kim gave the hippogriff one more affectionate pat before she backed away, careful to maintain polite eye contact with him until he broke it himself. Now Buckbeak’s attention was on Harry, and they began the process of trust building.

   Kim didn’t think it went quite as smoothly as her own, not to be cocky, but Harry did very well. He bowed, though he looked up a bit soon from nerves. Kim couldn’t say she blamed him. It was hard to expose yourself to such a powerful beast. But that was the point, wasn’t it? You had to prove you could trust before you could be trusted.

   Regardless of the gracefulness of Harry’s bow, Buckbeak returned it nonetheless, and again there were a few cheers and claps in the class.

   “Good job, Harry,” Kim congratulated as she came up to pet Buckbeak beside him. “Isn’t his coat so soft?”

   “Yeah it really is. You were terrific by the way,” Harry said, looking over at her with a gleam in his eye.

   “What, with Buckbeak? That was nothing,” she said with a shrug.

   “Well yeah, and with Malfoy too,” he said with a chuckle, looking up at Buckbeak’s feathered face. Kim was thinking of some way to respond when Hagrid interrupted her thoughts.

   “Righ’ well, I reckon he might’ let yeh ride him!” he said, looking at Kim expectantly. At this, Kim’s bright and lively pallor drained entirely.

   “Ride him?” she breathed, staring blankly at Hagrid, waiting for him to crack up from his own joke. “You mean… in the sky?” 

   Hagrid laughed as if _this_ was the funny thing to say, not the suggestion that Kim, who had never even ridden a broom, should _fly_. She looked back at Buckbeak who she could have sworn looked a little hurt at her hesitation. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to fly. It sounded exhilarating. Terrifying. But often those came hand in hand, didn’t they? It was simply a matter of impending death that had her worried. She had more confidence in her ability to calm an angry beast, far more for that matter, than she did in her ability to stay top side on one’s back while gliding 100 feet above the ground.

   “Don’ worry,” Hagrid encouraged. “He’s a very friendly flier.”

   Hagrid had the whole thing wrong. Kim wasn’t worried about Buckbeak’s friendliness, she was worried about her own clumsiness. She looked at Harry, and she was certain he could see the horror plain in her features.

   “I’ve never flown before,” she breathed to him.

   “Not even on a broom?” he asked disbelievingly, to which Kim shook her head vigorously. “H-Hagrid. Suppose I go first instead.”

   “Well I don’ see why you couldn’t go together. Buckbeak trusts the both of yeh. The two a’ yeh jus’ climb up there, behind the wing joint, an’ mind yeh don’ pull any of his feathers out, he won’ like that…”

   Kim looked at Harry uncertainly. Now he was looking rather uncomfortable as well, but he shrugged and raised his brow as if to say, _might as well get a move on it_. They moved around the side of Buckbeak. They stood there for a moment, surveying the animal as if trying to imagine how they were going to comfortably get themselves atop it without having to get uncomfortably close. There simply wasn’t a way.

   “Erm, I think it might be better if you get on first,” Harry muttered. Kim looked at him a bit nervously, and he mistook this as discomfort. “I mean, that is, if you were worried about falling off… It’d be a lot harder for me to, y-you know—

   “No, it’s fine,” Kim assured him, forcing a smile and trying to collect herself. She took hold of Buckbeak’s neck, which was soft but firm and made of solid muscle. She lifted onto her tiptoes and put her foot delicately on Buckbeak’s wing, swinging her other leg over his back. Wiggling a little, she managed to shimmy up the rest of the way and sit atop the massive creature. She gave a breathy laugh, because she felt more powerful already than she ever remembered feeling. Like she could certainly ride into battle fearlessly with this as her steed.  

   Harry hoisted himself up behind her, about as wobbly as she had been. He was now situated behind her, sitting rather close. She didn’t really think she liked Harry in any sort of way other than friendly, so being back to chest with him was a bit awkward. She hoped he felt the same way and that there weren’t any signals being crossed. Honestly the last thing she should be worrying about at the moment was whether a boy had a crush on her or not, because she could feel Buckbeak flexing his wings beneath her.

   “Go on, then!” Hagrid roared suddenly, slapping Buckbeak on his hindquarters. With that, 12 foot wings were expanding from Buckbeak’s back, and he was prancing forward toward the edge of the clearing. Kim frantically leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Buckbeak’s neck, hoping desperately that her clutching arms wouldn’t rip out a delicate feather. Harry leaned forward on top of her just as they left the ground, his hand wrapping around to clutch the side of Buckbeak’s neck, and his other hand pressed against the shoulder and wing joint. Kim couldn’t imagine that this was a comfortable grip, and she was terrified suddenly that she was about to kill the boy who lived. What if Harry fell of Buckbeak because of her, and the Grim prediction came true?

   But they were rising off the ground, and soon all Kim could think about was the distance. The trees grew farther away, and the wind was pressing against her cheeks. It was marvelous and terrible, freeing and absolutely gripping all at once. She felt her stomach start to loosen as she became more accustom to the rocking motions of the hippogriff’s mighty wing flaps.

   “You all right Harry?” she asked, risking a glance behind her. Harry didn’t seem much more at ease than she did, but his eyes were gazing over the expanse around him, and his body seemed to be adjusting to the motions as well.

   “I’m all right,” he called over the wind into Kim’s ear. “Just that it’s nothing like flying a broom is all.”

   Kim laughed, but it was cut short as Buckbeak took a subtle dive. It wasn’t steep but it was still enough to leave Kim’s stomach in her throat, and have her scrambling to wrap her arms tight around Buckbeak’s neck again. Harry placed an instinctive hand firmly on her shoulder as it happened, perhaps thinking she was about to fall. She relaxed, realizing she’d panicked for nothing.

   Smiling over her shoulder she said, “I imagine it’s not. Are you any good at broom flying?”

   Harry smiled briefly and looked up at the clouds above. “Not bad,” he said.

   “Oh,” Kim said with nervous energy tightening her voice as she directed her gaze downward, “I think we’re landing.”

   Buckbeak steered back down to the clearing and again Kim felt her stomach was crawling out of her gut, into her throat, and she clamped her jaw tight to insure it didn’t fly right out her mouth. There was a forceful bump as Buckbeak unevenly hit the ground with all four of his feet and took a few bouncing steps until he stopped. Kim, arms gripping tight was thankful she’d stayed upright through the process and had honestly no idea how Harry managed it.

   “Good work, the both of yeh!” Hagrid greeted them, catching Buckbeack’s great head with one of his hands and petting it. Harry slid hastily off and held out a hand to help Kim. She couldn’t help but notice how pleasant Harry seemed. How polite. She took his hand and threw her leg over, hopping down with a thud that was steadied by Harry’s arm. She would have expected a famous wizard to be a bit more shameless, but quite the opposite she found Harry to be almost quiet at times. Quiet, and kind, and boyish.

   The rest of the class got their turns next, now that they had seen a full demonstration without any bloodshed. Kim watched as her classmates attempted to win the trust of their hippogriffs, giving a few pointers to Ron who was clearly not having a good time of things. But her eyes landed back on Buckbeak, across the clearing, who had ended up re-partnered with Malfoy of all people. Something in Kim’s stomach flared up. Her protective nature didn’t like this, for some reason. Never the less, Buckbeak had bowed to Malfoy, so perhaps she should simply trust the creature’s judgment.

   “This is very easy,” Malfoy said loudly so that Kim could hear it all the way where she stood with Harry, Ron, and Hermione. “I knew it must have been,” he continued, shooting a pointed gaze at Kim, “if Potter and that half-blood could do it…”

   Kim didn’t react to the name, though she wondered vaguely how Malfoy had known she was half-blood. In fact, she wasn’t quite sure she counted as a half-blood. Usually her insulters went for the full grit of mudblood, given that she had very little wizarding blood in her family line, and both her parents were muggles. It then occurred to Kim that it was just a blanket insult that he used for those he didn’t find worthy, whether he knew for certain about their blood or not.

   “I bet you’re not dangerous at all, are you?” Malfoy continued to Buckbeak. “Are you, you great ugly brute?” And then Buckbeak reared in a terribly fast flash. Kim saw the anger in his eyes for only an instant before he was wiping his head and kicking, throwing Malfoy onto the ground. Wide eyed shock gave way to the realization that an angry hippogriff could easily kill someone, if it had the mind. And Kim really couldn’t blame Buckbeak if he wanted to kill Malfoy. 

   Without thinking she ran over, past where Malfoy lie waling in the grass, to where Buckbeak still reared.

   “Hey now, hey now,” Kim said in a calming voice. Hagrid was there too, coming to Buckbeak’s side and reaching to clamp the collar around his throat. Once Buckbeak’s feet were on the ground, Kim took a step closer, pressing her palm against the great hippogriff’s heart. It was thundering, and his racing eyes searched her face for a frantic moment before locking with utter stillness with hers.

   “There now, calm down,” she said soothingly. By now Hagrid had secured the collar around Buckbeak’s neck and was tying him up again with his leash. A warm smile crept onto Kim’s features feeling somehow calmed herself by the overwhelming sense of belonging, of trustworthiness that flooded through her as she gazed into the Hippogriff’s eyes.

   “I’m dying!” came a shrill scream, and Kim was drawn out of her warmth and to the realization that the class was panicking around Malfoy, still writing on the ground. “I’m dying, look at me! It’s killed me!”

   “Yer not dyin’!” Hagrid grunted, but he looked rather ghostly.

   “You’re true colors are really showing now, aren’t they Malfoy,” Kim said, peering down on him where he held himself, cut but not fatally wounded. Kim figured he would be just fine and that he was more than blowing this out of proportion.

   “It’s _you’re_ stupid be—

   Kim sunk down onto her knees in a flash and covered Malfoy’s mouth. “Not another word Malfoy,” she warned him, and he looked utterly horrified that she would dare touch him. “You really think insulting him again is smart. I thought Slytherins were supposed to be clever.” She released Malfoy who was too shocked to be angry, and too white faced and panicked to say a word of complaint as Hagrid hoisted him up into his arms. Hagrid hurried across the grass to get Malfoy to the hospital wing. The class followed, shaken and whispering about the goings on, some even shouting.

   “They should fire him straight away!” wailed a girl who was particularly distraught over Malfoy’s injury. One of his groupies, Kim had gathered.

   “It was Malfoy’s fault!” snapped another student before Kim could even clear away the shock at the ludicrous claim. _Fire_ Hagrid over something like this?

   “Honestly, my muggle father’s been injured worse working with _horses_! They call themselves wizards when they’re afraid of a little blood…” Kim grumbled to her friends. They solemnly agreed.

   “That was a really bad thing to happen in Hagrid’s first class, though, wasn’t it?” Ron said worriedly. “Trust Malfoy to mess things up for him…”


	5. The Strix

Chapter 5

The Strix

   September was slinking by. Kim was in the Ravenclaw common room when a wavy haired blond floated down into a seat beside her on the couch. She had a wide pair of glasses on that shimmered oddly when she turned her head, and cartoon-like bats hanging from her ears. Kim raised her eyebrows slightly and went back to her reading.

   “Oddly haunting, isn’t it?” the girl said in a wispy voice. Kim looked over at her to see she had pulled the glasses up over her forehead and was peering up at the starry ceiling. Kim glanced up with a frown.

   “I mean, it’s beautiful,” the girl continued explaining, “but it’s sort of ghostly in a way. Like dozens of real stars got trapped there on the ceiling.”

   Kim was still frowning oddly when the girl looked back at her, so she wiped away her expression and gave her a smile. She was a weird girl, but Kim couldn’t’ deny that she described the feeling of the starry scene above well.

   “Yeah, I see what you mean,” Kim agreed, wanting to be nice. Everything about the girl seemed fragile and doe like, with her wide blue eyes and frosty pale skin and hair.

   “I’m Luna, by the way,” the girl said with a sweet smile.

   “Kim.”

   “Nice to meet you. Are you a first year?”

   “No third. I transferred here from an American school,” Kim explained again for at least the hundredth time. She didn’t hold it against Luna though, it was a reasonable question.

   “Oh, how interesting. Say, that’s quite a good book you’re reading there,” she said, nodding to the copy of _Creatures that_ _Don’t Exist_ in Kim’s hands. She had really only been skimming through it, but it did have some interesting viewpoints about little known magical creatures in it.

   “Oh, you’ve read it?” Kim asked.

   Luna nodded. “When you get to the chapter about Moon Frogs, come talk to me. I’d love to discuss it with you. Fascinating creatures,” she said, still smiling wistfully as if waking from a dream. Kim had trouble keeping her brow from bending, but she forced a smile at the odd girl and nodded.

   “Hey Loony, don’t bother the new girl,” said Grant Page, one of the more popular Ravenclaws in Kim’s year as she’d come to learn. Luna looked over at him vaguely, but her mouth tightened just slightly around the edges. She knew she was being made fun of, she just wasn’t going to say anything about it. She looked back up at the ceiling.

   “She was probably asking you about invisible cycling mice-frogs or something, right?” Grant said, placing his hands on his hips and looking pleased with himself.

   “What are you talking about?” Kim demanded, screwing up her face with distain. Grant looked baffled for a moment, and then crestfallen that Kim wasn’t going along with his mocking of poor Luna.

   “What… You haven’t noticed? Loony likes to go on about things, odd things, that’s all,” he muttered, putt off by Kim’s frown.

   “I’ve never heard of an invisible cycling mouse-frog. And frankly, that sounds ridiculous,” she continued, knowing it would only frustrated him more if she pretended _he_ was the odd one rather than Luna.

   “I- I know!” Grant stammered, thrusting a hand at Luna. “I was saying that she-… ugh! Forget it,” he said, storming off, clearly perturbed that Kim hadn’t gotten his joke.

   “Thanks for that,” Luna said in a breathy voice, looking over at Kim. “You didn’t have to. It’s nice to be stood up for sometimes, though.”

   “Anytime,” Kim said with a smile. With that Luna pushed herself up off the couch.

   “Well, I best be going. But if you do end up reading that chapter on Moon Frogs…”

   “I’ll be sure to let you know,” Kim said with a nod. Luna wondered off toward the dormitories. Kim was just about to go back to her skimming when another voice broke her concentration.

   “You really like Luna?” It was Clemon Darby, draped in the armchair across from Kim. Kim braced herself for what she was sure was about to be an unpleasant conversation.

   “I just met her, but she seems nice enough,” Kim said with a shrug.

   “Yeah, she is nice,” Clemon said, sitting up and swinging her legs to lay her feet flat on the floor. “There’s not a lot of people that are genuinely nice like that, you know?”

   Kim was surprised. She’d expected something snide, more like what Grant had had to say about Luna than this. “Yeah…” was all Kim could manage through the shock.

   “I know people think she’s weird… and she is weird but, I don’t know. Being weird certainly isn’t the worst thing a person can be. Right? I mean seriously, of all the terribly things people can be, why is everyone so obsessed with making fun of weird people? She could be stupid. Or lazy, or _boring_. I despise dull people, personally, so if Luna wants to be odd, I say have at it. At least you’re not wretched Grant who flies around on his little stick like a big man. So predictable.”

   Throughout this monologue, a smirk had spread across Kim’s face and her eyebrow had cocked to full peak. So Clemon wasn’t so bad after all.

   “What?” she asked indignantly, catching the grin on Kim’s face.

   “Nothing,” Kim said, shaking her head and calming her features. “I agree with you is all.”

* * *

   Later in the month Kim was sitting at the Ravenclaw dining table for dinner. It was Friday, a good day because it meant Kim got a much deserved break from her classes. Two bony bodies slid into the seats on either side of her, and were she not sitting where only Ravenclaw’s usually sat, she would have sworn she knew exactly who the bodies belonged to without even glancing up.

   “How do ‘ya fancy this, George? We’re invading enemy territory,” Fred said, swinging his legs into the bench to her right. Kim let out a breath of air in a sort of laugh.

   “It’s a different house, not enemy territory,” she said, jutting her elbows out on either side to poke them both in the ribs.

   “Hey!” they both objected, making Kim giggle.

   “We’ve got a proposition for you,” Fred continued.

   “Fine, but first I have a question.”

   “Shoot,” said George.

   “Do you two ever stop? Is there ever a time that you’re just… students at a school and you’re not trying to mastermind your next scheme?” Her face wore a critical expression, but her tone made it clear she was enjoying their antics too much to actually wish they’d stop.

   They both made a show of looking as if they were pondering this question for about half a second before responding in unison, “No.”

   Kim nodded. It was as she expected.

   “Anyway, about this proposition,” George prompted.

   “Flitwick confiscated half our supply of Stink Pellets the other day.”

   “And we want to get them back.”

   Kim looked back and forth between the two of them. “And you think _I_ can get them for you?” she asked.

   “Flittywick _is_ the head of Ravenclaw, isn’t he?” Fred asked.

   Kim rolled a dramatic shrug. “Sure, but that doesn’t mean we’re great _chums._ What, you think we sit down on Saturdays for tea and reading?”

   “What else would a Ravenclaw do on Saturday?” George said.

   “Certainly not go outside.”

   “Or stroll with friends.”

   “Or—

   “Enough Ravenclaw jokes. I swear, I’m waiting for the day they get old for you two.”

   Again they made a show of acting as if they were thinking on it. “Never,” they said together.

   “Look…” she said slowly, turning over their ridiculous proposition in her mind. “What is it exactly that you had in mind?”

   “That’s a girl!” they both jeered, Fred clasping her on the back and giving her a firm shake of approval. Kim smiled widely despite herself, but told herself to calm down. _Whatever they have concocted is bound to land me in trouble if I’m not careful,_ she told herself.

   “It’s a simple plan, really,” Fred said.

   “Easy as can be.”

   “We really just want you to distract Flitwick for us, so we can sneak into his office and get the Stink Pellets. You see, we figured if either of us tried to do it, it’d be rather suspicions.”

   “He’d never fall for it,” George said. “But if _you_ draw him away… He’d never expect it!”

   “It’s brilliant,” Fred said with a wild smile.

   “Well, I don’t know if I’d call it _brilliant._ We’re not exactly thieving a prized painting from the Louvre. But, it’s not a bad plan. When do we do it?”

   “I told Fred you wouldn’t let us down,” George said.

   “We’ll let you know when it’s ready,” Fred said. With that they were excitedly exchanging stories about different times they’d hoodwinked the teachers at Hogwarts, and different times they’d been caught…

   The last week of September went by without much notice. Sadly, Kim’s favorite class, Care of Magical Creatures, had become frightfully boring. After Malfoy’s dramatic accident, Hagrid had reverted to a lengthy lesson on flobberworms. They were entirely useless, disgusting, and boring creatures, and far below the skill level of anyone who had already managed to enter a trust relationship with a hippogriff. They were far below Kim’s skill, and they were the exact kind of lesson material she’d left Lommonworth to escape. She didn’t blame Hagrid for it though. As she’d been told by Harry, Ron, and Hermione, the possibility of Hagrid losing his job because of what happened to Malfoy was a real threat. They said it was more due to Malfoy’s exaggerated claims of his injuries and his father’s status than having to do with any fault of Hagrid’s.

   And while Kim thought perhaps Hagrid had made a small mistake, starting with a creature so dangerous and tricky, she certainly didn’t condone Malfoy’s taking advantage. It only heated her dislike for the slimy boy to a roiling boil.

   Divinations was a fascinating subject, though it was hard for Kim to stand with Professor Trelawney’s dramatics. But, if she could ignore the professor and the bumbling students who worshiped her as well as whispered of Harry’s certain death, she could enjoy the mysteriousness of the subject. And the fact that it seemed she’d found one she was more than proficient in other than magical creatures.

   One morning, before class, Strix was being particularly impossible. She did that some days, when she simply decided she would not be left alone. Usually Kim could convince her to stay, if she promised she’d come back during a break in class, but more than once she’d had to allow the bird to take perch on her shoulder for her classes. So far, no professor had seemed to mind, and Strix was always well behaved. So Kim, impatient and running late today, forfeited quickly and allowed Strix to hop on.

   “Ron, you’re zipper’s undone,” Fred was saying to his brother who sat across the table. Ron looked down with alarm, only to have it fade immediately into a scowl. The twins laughed as they parted like a sea of orange, allowing Kim to take her usual seat between them.

   “I couldn’t even see you’re zipper from here,” Fred said, mocking his brother’s gullibleness.

   “Shove off,” Ron grumbled, but there was no heat in it.

   “You look nice today, Ron. Did you do something different with your hair,” Kim said, grabbing a plate and situating it before her. Ron perked up immediately, a smile tugging on either end of his full lips.

   “Yeah,” he said, touching his hair like it was a trophy now. “Yeah, I guess I did comb it a bit differently…”

   Kim nodded and gave him a smile before directing her attention to the food she was loading onto her plate. She glanced up once or twice to enjoy the brazened look on his face as he listened to Hermione go on about some class or another.

   “You shouldn’t encourage ‘em,” Fred said.

   “His head’s already big enough,” George added, but they were both smiling like they couldn’t help enjoying their brother’s easy enjoyment too.

   Strix gave an angry squeak then, and flapped her little wings. Kim instinctually flinched away as she lifted off, but immediately reached for her, not waning her to fly off and cause mischief.

   “Hey, come back,” she called as Strix passed over George’s head and dove at Harry. “Oh, god no!” she cursed under her breath, standing hastily as Strix flapped angrily around the startled Harry.

   “Was’he doin’?” Ron asked, voice high with confusion and a twinge of panic.

   “I don’t know,” Kim said, coming to Harry’s side as he batted Strix away. But it was obvious he was trying not to hurt the bird, so his batting hand was doing nothing. Strix got a good nip at Harry’s ear, making him cry out in surprise, as Kim attempted to collect her again.

   Just like the last time she darted away to give herself enough space before soaring back to land on Kim’s arm, seeming placated.

   “What the hell?” Kim demanded of Strix, who offered no answer. Harry’s ear had a tiny cut and a drop of blood coming off it. “Harry, I’m so sorry. I don’t know why she doesn’t like you!”

   “That bird’s a menace, Kim,” Harry grumbled, holding his ear and frowning at her and Strix.

   “I swear she’s never done it before! Well, not to anyone but you! Maybe you just have a smell about you, Harry. I’m really sorry.” She tittered a bit, feeling embarrassed that her bird had attacked Harry. She sat back down and tried to finish the rest of her breakfast.

   “You think you could sick your attack bird on Filch, Kim?” George asked, almost absent mindedly. Kim shot a sideways glair at him.

   “’s just a question,” he said with an innocent shrug.

   After breakfast the four third years headed off to Divination, and as usual it started with some foreboding dramatic fortunes courtesy of Professor Trelawney. The class was about halfway over when Kim felt she was finally starting to get an understanding of heptomology. This was simply an introductory lesson on the method of divination, of course, but Kim thought she was starting to grasp it.

   “This text is a total maze,” Hermione complained beside Kim. It never ceased to surprise how difficult Divination seemed to be for her, given that she managed to handle countless other difficult classes with seeming ease.

   “What do you mean?” Kim asked, peering over her own copy of _Unfogging the Future._

   “It’s talking all this nonsense about seven, but I just can’t see what seven has to do with peering into the conscious mind.”

   Kim cleared her throat and lowered her book, attempting to gather what little of the evanescent subject she had managed to grasp in her own mind and formulate a coherent explanation.

   “The way I’ve figured it- and I’m not sure I’m right either,” she said as a disclaimer, eyes wide as she shook her hand back and forth, “is that heptomology is named thusly after the number seven. Which in traditional Wicca lore that goes way back to before the times of modern wizards and witches, was a symbol of internal thought, consciousness, self knowledge, and sort of… internal spirituality and analysis. Those are the important bits anyway,” she said, scanning over her book and looking back at Hermione. “That’s just where the name of the subject comes from. It goes into an admittedly long and kind of pointless description of all that, when really it’s just explaining the name of the study.”

   “Oh… is that all the seven is about?” Hermione said, frowning at the pages of her book.

   “I think so. Heptomology itself is actually a form a divination that focuses on the study of the conscious and the subconscious. I guess, from what I can read, it revolves around the belief that we, or at least those that are connected to the ‘threads of the outerworld’ are inherently aware of what’s going to happen in the future? We just burry that awareness beneath all the things we _think_ we know, like the notion that of course no one can tell the future. So if you’re gut is telling you something is wrong, something probably _is_ wrong, but most people will choose to ignore their gut feeling because they’ve been taught to follow certain preordained cues of logic. Like someone drawing out their wand and pointing at you. You’re allowed to panic at that point, because there’s clear and obvious danger.”

   “That doesn’t mean we _should_ panic,” Hermione said with an edge of disdain.

   “Well, right, but… you get what I’m saying,” she reasoned, a little annoyed that she was purposefully deflecting the point of the conversation. Kim then realized she didn’t think Hermione _did_ understand what she was saying, or at least not in a full way, and simply wouldn’t admit it.

   “That’s a really beautiful bird you have there,” said one of Kim’s classmates from another table, watching as Strix fluffed her crimson feathers and blinked happily.

   “Oh, thank you,” Kim said, smiling, looking at the bird as well. “I wouldn’t bring her around with me like this, but she’s pretty attached. Sometimes I have a hard time getting her to stay in my dormitory.”

   “That’s adorable! What’s her name?”

   Kim opened her mouth to reply but was cut short by a terrible voice that didn’t belong to anyone Kim recognized.

   “ _The Strix,”_ said the voice, and looking over with a frightful start, Kim realized it was Professor Trelawney. She was leaning over another student’s table like she had been talking with them when she wrenched her head to the side in an almost unnatural fashion, to look across the room at Kim with her large glass-like eyes. Her voice hadn’t sounded right at all, too deep and sharper than Kim ever remembered it being. Then, as if waking from a daydream, Trelawney blinked and straitened.

   “How did you know that?” Kim asked, because this wasn’t like Trelawney’s usual predictions. This was precise, and in the moment. This couldn’t be another one of her charades, could it? Perhaps she had overheard Kim telling her friends about Strix another time, but Kim didn’t recall that. In fact, Kim was certain this was the first time she’d brought her owl to this class. There was that, and something about this felt different…

   Professor Trelawney took a tentative step forward, her lower lip quivering as she allowed her eyes to dart from Kim to Strix for only a moment.

   “Where did you get that?” she asked in earnest, pointing a trembling finger to the owl.

   “I bought her… In Diagon Ally.”

   “Oh, no, no, no, no, no…” Professor Trelawney said, as if this wasn’t in fact where Kim had gotten her. As if that couldn’t possibly be true. Kim’s bewildered frown merely deepened.

   “The Strix she sits aside the harbinger

   She bears neither egg nor fruit. 

   Abandon your cause upon the sight of her,

   For the point will soon be moot.”

   Kim shivered, the rhyme that Trelawney had recited echoing in her mind. Had the professor gone completely mad? But Kim couldn’t help feeling like that wasn’t quite what was happening either.

   “You’re aura has changed from the days before,” she said, still trembling slightly. There was an odd tangling mix of fear and intrigue in her voice and features. “Something… pulling… draining, it’s clouding me. Sapping me, even,” she muttered, shaking her head slightly and backing away. “My dear, I’ll have to ask that you… don’t bring that… that bird back to my class again, please,” she said, moving unsteadily to an armchair and seating herself.

   “Yes… of course, I-… I’m sorry,” Kim said, clearing her throat and attempting not to sound utterly shaken. But she was.


	6. Hogsmeade

Chapter 6

Hogsmeade

   Kim ran her finger along the spines of books in the magical creatures section of the library. She’d been in there for days, hunting through tomes of dark omens and obscure divination practices. Still she couldn’t make any sense of what had happened with Professor Trelawney.

   “You’re wasting your time,” Hermione reminded her, once again, from where she sat writing an essay on star patters for Astronomy.

   “I _know_ you think everything about divination is completely stupid,” Kim said, forcing a book that was too large for its place back on the shelf, “but I just don’t think it’s 100% a waist.”

   “Why bother with something that’s 99% a waist then?” she asked, looking up.

   Kim sighed, sinking into the chair across from her and rubbing her eyes. She’d been pouring over books for hours, and unlike Hermione, this was _not_ how she wanted to spend her Saturday. She’d much rather be spending it with Fred and George, or even going to watch Harry run practice rounds for quidditch season coming up like Ron had done.

   “Maybe you’re right,” Kim finally said. She was running out of books to skim through anyway, and she had long since run out of patience. “I don’t understand Trelawney.”

   “No one does. She’s not meant to be understood,” Hermione muttered, scribbling more of her essay.

   “She does do that thing where she’s kind of… purposefully mysterious for no reason.”

   Hermione let out a breathy laugh. “Exactly. Don’t worry yourself about it. You have a pet owl, and for whatever reason she decided that meant you were a harbinger of death, or something completely insane like that,” she said, laughter in her voice. She even looked back up and started speaking in a terrible impersonation of Professor Trelawney. “Beware, Shimmers. That owl sucks away aura and steels… socks!”

   At this Kim exploded into laughter, not expecting Hermione to go so out of her way to be funny. Hermione laughed at herself as well, and at Kim’s enjoyment. They chuckled together, gripping their sides until a befuddled Hufflepuff told them to _please shush!_

   From then on, Kim let go of her search, though she didn’t totally abandon Divination. Quite the opposite, actually, she started studying it outside of class, seeing as how Kim had a hard time focusing with the ridiculous show Trelawney put on every day. Kim thought she was actually becoming quite attuned to the concept of Heptomology. It was far beyond the third year level, but Kim felt she was ready to give one of the future reading methods a try. In secret, of course.

   With a combination of dried herbs (borrowed from the Herbology gardens) burnt to produce aroma, and muttered incantations for focused magical power, one should be able to meditate and awaken a spiritually unclouded state. It is in this state in which the future can be made clear. Kim followed the instructions in the book she’d borrowed from the library, for this was far beyond the introductory _Unfogging the Future._ She sat on her bed cross-legged, planning to claim this was an extra credit assignment for Divinations if someone walked in on her. She closed her eyes and breathed in the smell of the burning shrivelfig root and moly stems. It smelled mostly of burning plant, but after a few inhales, Kim’s head started to feel a bit light. Not dizzy, but hazy. Like she wasn’t quite present in this world.

   She let her mind wander through the sensations of sitting as still as absolutely possible. She did it for a long time. A time she wasn’t sure how long. In fact, she wasn’t sure about time at all. When she opened her eyes she felt clear again, like a fog had lifted, and she could hardly remember the fuzzy feeling from before. She was also certain that the magic hadn’t worked, because the only thing she felt was a strong desire to go find Fred and George. But that wasn’t odd, was it?

   She stood, noting that most of the smoke had cleared out the open window, and that Strix was gone, probably not a fan of the smell. She tossed the left over ash out the window, disposing of the evidence, and marched down the tower. She found the twins very quickly, leaning against an archway in an open corridor where the brisk air of mid-October made Kim pull her robes around her more tightly.

   “Hey, we were just looking for you,” Fred said.

   “Must not have been looking very hard,” Kim retorted, since they hadn’t appeared to be looking at all.

   “Never mind, what are you doing right now?”

   “Nothing, classes are done for the day.”

   Fred and George looked at each other mischievously. “Perfect,” they said together.

   And with that they were pulling her down the hallway towards Professor Flitwick’s office. They left her, with hurried plans whispered excitedly in her ear, at the door. She knocked.

   “Professor Flitwick?” she called

   “Yes, come in,” he answered in his nasally high voice. Kim opened the door and put on her best concerned face.

   “Professor,” she said, sounding convincingly breathless.

   “Oh, Miss Shimmers, how can I help you?”

   “It’s the rug in the next corridor,” she said, with distress. “You see, it keeps yanking out from underneath people and making them fall!”

   “What?” Professor Flitwick said in surprise, rising from his desk and scuttling to the door. “Take me to it!”

   “This way,” she said, and followed the twins’ instructions down the hall, to the left, and then slowed. Before her was an empty hall, with a large red and swirling ornate carpet on the floor. It looked perfectly like it belonged on the floor of the castle, but Kim eyed it wearily none the less. Flitwick did the same, approaching with caution.

   “Is this it?”

   Kim nodded, hoping it was. Flitwick sighed, realizing there was really only one way to have a demonstration of the enchantment. He stepped onto the edge of the rug, and sure enough, it yanked a decent half foot forward. Even though Flitwick was expecting it, he still yelped and toppled to the ground, landing hard on his rear. Kim sucked her lips into her mouth, stifling a laugh that almost escaped from her belly. She looked away from Flitwick and forced her features back to serious.

   “Well,” he grumbled, getting up and brushing himself off. “Did you see who did this?”

   Kim shook her head. “No. It got me too, that’s the only way I found out,” she said, touching her lower back to instill the idea of phantom pain.

   Flitwick waved his wand and eyed the carpet. Sticking his small foot on the edge of the carpet and then yanking away, he tested that he had successfully reversed the enchantment.

   “Well, thank you for informing me Miss Shimmers. Carry on,” he said, turning to waddle back down the hallway. Kim circled around the next hallway over and headed back to the place where Fred and George had split up with her. They were chatting with each other happily. As she approached they burst into an enthusiastic chant of triumph.

   “Sh!” Kim hushed, but it was through smiling lips as the boys came and took her shoulders. She patted them on the chest to shoo them down the hall. “Flitwick might still be nearby.”

   “That worked perfectly!” Fred said with excitement, holding up the once confiscated bag of Stink Pellets.

   “You were splendid,” said George, in that incredibly warming way of his. “Like an actress strait off of Wizardway’s stage!”

   “Oh, please. It was easy,” Kim said, smiling at their shower of compliments. “You both did the heavy lifting. I have to say, the rug enchantment was quite a nice touch.”

   They both shrugged, pretending to blush, “You’re too kind,” they said in unison, and they were off to the dining hall for dinner and celebration.

* * *

   Halloween was upon them before Kim even realized, and students were lining the halls, preparing for the trip to Hogsmeade. Kim was pretty excited herself, given how much everyone else was chatting the place up. She caught up with Fred and George and they made their way into the wizarding town.

   The wind was bitingly cold, and Kim had to pull her scarf tightly around herself.

   “Cold?” George asked as they were just entering Hogsmeade.

   “Don’t let Mum hear ya’ say that,” Fred remarked, “or she’ll knit ya’ one of these.” He held up a rather thick and knotty scarf and gave it a jostle so all its long, worn tassels made of yarn did a violent bounce.

   Kim chuckled, turning her gaze to the town they were entering as she said, “I think its charming…” but her voice faded away with aw as her eyes spread wide to take in the sight.

   Hogsmeade was an explosion of Halloween. The cobble stone path was littered with eerie candles that hovered but a few inches from the ground, and disappeared entirely as the walker drew near. The shops were draped in live webs with dangling spiders, and were spotted with carved pumpkins that glowed brightly, even in afternoon. Everything was orange and black, and there was wizard music streaming from one of the nearby open pubs that made Kim want to spin on her toes. The smile that spread across her cheeks was completely unstoppable.

   “Amazing isn’t it?” George asked in a quiet, genuine voice, one Kim rarely heard him use. She glanced over to him to see he was eyeing her with a soft expression.

   “Yes, it is,” she said, breathlessly, looking back to the amazing view of excited students bustling from shop to shop, greeted by jolly shop owners.

   “C’mon,” said Fred with a wave of his hand and an excited gait. “Let’s off to Zonko’s.”

   Fred and George enjoyed themselves immensely for an excruciatingly long time in the joke shop. Kim found it fun as well, for the first few minutes, and after that she simply enjoyed spending time with the entertaining duo. But how many times could she listen to them bicker about the complex composition of Hiccough Sweets and Dungbombs? Finally she decided she was going to leave the two to their business and go on her own to explore the rest of Hogsmeade. She could inquire about the difference between using dragon dung and mooncalf dung for the most adequate explosion of poo anytime. But she would only get to visit Hogsmeade but so often.

   The twins seemed to barley notice her announcement to leave, which she decided not to let sting her. They were just being their ridiculous selves. She left the shop and headed across the way into one of the pubs, the Three Broomsticks, to get her first taste of butterbeer. In America, it was forbidden for a witch or wizard under the age of 18 to have butterbeer, even though it’s alcoholic content was extremely minimal. Lots of parents let their kids have it on special occasions, but seeing as how Kim’s parents were muggles, she’d never had any.

   She sat down beside a large, ogreish looking man at the bar and waited for the bartender to look her way. Shooting a glance to the man, she realized he was more than just a _bit_ ogreish, and she dawned a nervous expression.

   “What can I get for yeh?” asked the bartender.

   “Uh, a butterbeer please?”

   “Certainly Miss,” he nodded, moving over to the tap as he whistled along to the jovial band of three witches that played in the corner of the bar. “Here ya’ are,” he said, sliding Kim a large glass filled with golden liquid topped with foam. The glass was warm to the touch, and the foam kissed her nose as she took her first sip. The warmth spread through her immediately, tingling down her throat and tickling in her tummy. She smiled at the delicious splendor of the sensation. Scooting off the barstool and wiping her face, she looked for a more comfortable place to sit when she spotted Hermione and Ron.

   “Hey!” she greeted, coming to sit beside Ron. “What are you guys doing here?”

   “What do you mean?” Ron asked, but he was smiling widely. He also had a massive bag of sweets sitting on the table beside him. “Butterbeer of course.” He lifted his cup and let it hit the table a bit harder than Kim thought he intended.

   “Oh, me too! What I meant was, where’s Harry?”

   They both looked crestfallen. “Couldn’t come,” Ron said.

   “Why not?”

   “His ruddy muggle aunt and uncle wouldn’t sign his permission form.”

   Kim made a face of bewilderment. “Why not? It’s not like there’s any reason to stay away… Is Harry in trouble or something?”

   “Harry’s always in trouble with the Dursley’s,” Hermione explained, shaking her head as she stared at the rim of her glass. “But that’s not the only reason Harry’s not allowed to come here.”

   “What’s the other reason?” Kim asked, sobered by her serious expression. Hermione then looked at her with a bit of surprise. Glancing around the pub like someone might want to listen in on what she was about to say, she leaned forward.

   “Don’t you know? About Sirius Black?”

   Kim though the name sounded familiar, but she had no idea why, so she shook her head.

   “Bloody hell, woman,” Ron said, looking at Kim. “Where’ve you been living, under a rock?”

   “Well I’m living in a castle, Ron, I don’t know about you,” she snipped.

   “She’s muggle born, Ron, of course she wouldn’t have heard,” Hermione said.

   “It’s all over the papers!”

   “Anyway,” Hermione continued, ignoring Ron. “He’s a very dangerous outlaw that escaped from Azkaban a few months ago.”

   “Tell me you know what Azkaban is?”

   “British wizard prison,” Kim answered in a high tone. Ron seemed placated. “And I do remember hearing something about that over the summer. About the escape.”

   “Well, it’s dangerous for everyone,” Hermione said, “but especially so for Harry. Because Serious Black is thought to be after Harry. It’s thought that he wants to kill Harry, to get back at him for destroying You-Know-Who.”

   “Poor Harry,” Kim breathed, leaning back in her seat. “No wonder he’s been seeming so down lately. And all those predictions of death on top of it.”

   “I know,” Hermione said with a faint eye role.

   “ _There_ you are,” came George’s voice as he entered the pub.

   “Thought we’d find you in here,” Fred added.

   “Why’d you run off, we were just getting to the good stuff!”

   Kim smiled and shook her head. “Are you two done at the joke shop?”

   “For now,” Fred allowed. “We’re going to the shrieking shack.”

   “The what?” Kim asked.

   “We figured we’d take you,” George said. “Since you’ve never been.”

   “C’mon,” Fred said, waving again.

   “But I haven’t finished my butterbeer,” Kim protested, to which Fred turned, eyed the 1/4th that remained in the glass, and grabbed for it. With three fierce gulps and a sigh, he plopped the empty glass back down on the table.

   “Woo, now that’s sweet,” he said. Kim pursed her lips at him.

   “Fine,” she said, grudgingly. “But you owe me another drink!” With that they were whisking her out the door and she was throwing a harried wave over her shoulder at Ron and Hermione.

   By the time Kim returned to the castle with Fred and George she felt more than satisfied with her trip to Hogsmeade, and she was hardly hungry from all the butterbear and sweets they’d filled her with. She sat with Clemon at the feast, and later Luna after she scooted down and joined in. The three of them had a good time, watching the ghostly entertainment and sharing their Hogsmeade stories of the day. Clemon thought it was markedly odd that Kim was friends with Gryffindors, especially overwhelmingly Gryffindorian Gryffindors like Fred and George, but Kim was in far too good a mood to let sour-lemon-Clemon get to her.

   It wasn’t until later that night, when all the students were called back down into the Great Hall, that Kim discovered Sirius Black had broken into Gryffindor’s common room that very night. The shock she felt was shared by everyone, but she was especially worried because she knew what many didn’t. That Black had been there for Harry. As soon as Dumbledore was done announcing that all students would be sleeping in the Great Hall for safety, Kim made her way to the gaggle of Gryffindors and started looking for Harry.

   “There you are, what happened?” Kim said, as the rancor of students asking one another the very same question rose to a roar around her. Harry and Ron explained what they saw, with the Fat Lady’s painting being slashed.

   “Oh my god Harry,” Kim breathed. “Thank god you weren’t—”

   “Yeah, I know,” he said, sounding almost irritated. Kim reminded herself how much Harry evidently hated being doted on in the slightest. She grimaced, thinking he was just as proud as Buckbeak.

   “Nice flannels,” came a slightly mocking tone as Fred and George walked up. They were still wearing their robes, as were all the Gryffindors since they couldn’t get into their dormitories. Kim, on the other hand, had changed into her pajamas the first chance she’d got and was wearing flannel shorts, which she didn’t prefer to wear in public as it was, that were embarrassingly plaid, and a tank top with no bra. She crossed her arms nervously as a shiver ran down her body.

   “Good to see Black hasn’t gotten to either of you,” Kim said in a tight, disapproving tone. “God forbid he turn you serious for a moment of your life—” but Kim stopped short because the boys were looking at each other with exceedingly pleased grins.

   “Did you just make a pun?” Fred asked. Kim grimaced when she realized her mistake. Sirius Black. Making them serious. She closed her eyes in frustration as they started hooting with pleasure.

   They assembled their sleeping bags in a corner somewhere, everyone tightly fitting in edge to edge. Kim being squeezed between the twins, she quickly realized there was not much chance she’d fall asleep. The two of them were far too riled up, and kept exchanging Sirius Black themed jokes across her, only to have Percy angrily march over and shush them, which of course brought about a few strings of Percy themed jokes to follow. It took a long time, but Kim did eventually fall asleep sometime in the wee hours of the morning.

* * *

   “You mean she was actually considering not letting you practice?” Ron said, absolute disbelief in his voice. Harry had just relayed a story about Professor McGonagall expressing her worry toward Harry practicing quidditch out in the open where he could easily be snatched by Sirius Black. Kim herself thought it was a little over the top, but she understood the Professor’s worry.

   “Thankfully she changed her mind. We _have_ to win this game, Wood won’t stop going on about it,” Harry muttered. The four of them were out by Hagrid’s hut where Kim was tending to Buckbeak. She’d expressed some disappointment to Hagrid about the lesser difficulty of the curriculum, and that she missed Buckbeak specifically, to which Hagrid had offered to let her do some volunteer grounds keeping in her free time. Since then, she’d visited Buckbeak a number of times, and she was learning how to clean his claws to his liking. He got rather miffed if it was done improperly.

   “I still don’t understand it,” Kim said, mentioning something that had been on her mind for a while. “Why would Black try to break into the common room of all things? Wouldn’t he know where the students were?”

   Strix fluttered off Kim’s shoulder and landed on Buckbeak’s back. Kim watched, a bit carefully, worried Strix might scratch the hippogriff and set him in a tizzy. But Buckbeak didn’t seem to mind, and he even looked rather approvingly at the little owl as she fluffed her feathers and nestled into Buckbeak’s back.

   “Sirius Black is mad,” Ron answered. “Who knows what he’s thinking. I think his head’s gone screwy from all the day’s traveling. Lost track of time, probably.”

   Kim shrugged. “I guess. It just seems odd that someone with enough skill to break out of Azkaban, break _into_ Hogwarts, wouldn’t bother to make sure his target was where he thought he should be… it makes me wonder if he wasn’t looking for something…”

   “Yeah, isn’t it obvious; Harry.”

   “Maybe he thought Harry wasn’t allowed at the feast for some reason,” Hermione reasoned. “Maybe he just had the timing wrong and thought everyone would already be off to bed.”

   “I guess that does makes sense,” Kim agreed, watching Strix fluff Buckbeak’s feathers. She was genuinely surprised Buckbeak was allowing this.

   “Speaking of bed, Hermione, do you remember the password that Cadogan came up with this morning?”

   “Valiant steel of glory,” Hermione recited.

   “I never thought I’d say this, but I miss the Fat Lady. We’ve got, what, a password a day?” Ron complained.

   “And don’t forget about the challenges,” Harry said. Kim had already heard them mention that their new portrait guarding the entrance to the common room liked to pester students to impossible duels for minutes at a time, until he would finally let them pass.

   “I don’t even want to hear it,” Kim said. “At least _you_ don’t have to answer _riddles_ every time you want to enter the common room.”

   “Riddles?” Ron asked in disbelief. “That’s- that’s just stupid.”

   Kim laughed. “Yeah. Once you figure the riddle out it works like a password. Until it changes… at random. Then you’re stuck outside the common room for thirty minutes trying to figure the damn thing out.”

   “I’m definitely not a Ravenclaw,” Ron said, shaking his head with dislike.

   “No, no one was accusing you of that,” Hermione said with a mischievous smile. Shooting a glance at Kim, they both chuckled.

   “What’s so funny?” Ron asked, but they never explained it to him.


	7. Near Death

Chapter 7

Near Death

   It was the day of Kim’s first ever quidditch match. When she got to the Great Hall for breakfast, it was clear the festivities had already begun. Everyone was sporting either Gryffindor or Hufflepuff. Kim, of course, had a Gryffindor pin and little flag that were being handed out in the main hall. She had been worried, though, that the match would be canceled, or at least no one would want to go, because there was a ragging storm outside that howled and splattered the windows of the Great Hall with thick pellets of rain. That was clearly not the case.

   “Is this really still going to happen?” Kim asked Fred as she peered out the window again. It was storming so hard it looked like twilight.

   “Of course! You never cancel quidditch!”

   “You think people will stay? I mean everyone’s going to get drenched aren’t they?”

   “Of course they’ll stay!” Fred continued, as if this was an equally preposterous question.

   “You’ll stay, won’t you?” George asked, and it sounded rhetorical, but Kim couldn’t help but think there was a glint of something genuine in his eye.

   “Well…” she faltered, but she saw the glint get brighter, as George watched her intently for her answer. Truth was, she didn’t particularly _want_ to get soaked watching quidditch.

   “To watch you two, of course,” she finally said.

   “It’s a spectator’s sport, you’ll see,” Fred assured her, and she did see. Sort of.

   The field was greatly obscured by rain that flew this way and then that as the wind whipped in different directions. Kim silently hoped that Strix didn’t get too upset being locked in the dormitory, being that Kim had been forced to shut the window she usually left cracked for her. The game was a close one, and Kim thought she would enjoy watching it more if it weren’t for the fact that she was freezing, and Gryffindor was barley winning.

   Fred and George were a sight to see, though. They seemed right at home on their broom sticks, flying about and smashing their bats into bludgers. The game had dragged on for a long time, and she felt bad for the players, thinking they must feel even more sopping and frozen than she did. And then something terrible happened.

   She felt the cool creeping sensation a moment before she saw the dementors making their way across the field. Kim grabbed Hermione’s shoulder and started to hedge towards the aisle, gasping with horror.

   “They’re coming onto the field!” she said, and Hermione saw what Kim meant a moment later. The three of them ran out into the aisle, looking down at the dementors with frozen sinking pits in their stomachs.

   “What’re they doing—” Ron began, but Hermione shouted and pointed into the sky.

   “Look! Harry!”

   Harry was frozen on his broom, his body gone ridged. It was hard to make out exactly what was happening to him, but it seemed like he was paralyzed. And then his body slumped.

   “ _No_ ,” Kim cried, gripping the railing, because all she could do was watch. Harry fell, faster than her eyes could see, tumbling near 50 feet to the ground. And then he was motionless, his body firm against the earth. Kim pressed her fingers like frozen bones against her lips, not able to process what she saw, only able to watch.

   Dumbledore was there, in fact he had been there seconds before Harry had hit the ground, waving his wand. Now he was casting another spell, aimed at the dementors, with brilliant streams of silver coming from the end of his wand. Unfurling from the ribbons of silver was a great bird that sored over the field and frightened away the dementors. 

   Hermione gasped in a breath of air that she had been holding before her jaw wound up tight again. Kim looked at her, seeing that water was welling in her eyes. She wanted to say something, but she had no idea what there was to say. Harry wasn’t moving.

   Some of the professors lifted Harry’s body with a spell, floating him away. They were taking him back to the castle, back to Madam Pomfrey, Kim could only guess. Hermione was muttering something into her sleeve, her face crumpling, and Kim was still just watching. Not comprehending.

   “W-we better go up to the castle then,” Ron said, his voice shaken. Kim looked past Hermione to him. She nodded seriously and they all hurried down the stands as some bleary voices came over the loud speaker, making announcements that Kim couldn’t hear over the thundering of her own heart, the sucking of her breath, the rattling of her lungs, and the howling of the storm. They rushed up to the castle, meeting up with the Gryffindor team as they made their way there too.

   Kim saw Fred and George and maybe it was the emotion of seeing Harry go tumbling off his broom. Maybe it was not knowing if he was alive. Maybe it was the thought that it could have been any of them really, with dementors so close and with them so high, and so precarious. Regardless, she threw her arms around both their necks, burying her face between their shoulders. They hesitated in a moment of surprise before wrapping an arm each around her back. They were all sopping and chilled to the bone, but Kim felt marginally warmer against them, knowing they were alright. Pulling back she saw that both of them were pale white, water running in rivulets down there thin square features. Their wrists shook and their eyes were distant. She was right to be worried about them. Those Dementors could have knocked loose the entire team if Dumbledore hadn’t sent them away. She clutched both of their shoulders.

   “I’m glad you’re okay,” she said, tears now starting to prick in her eyes as she thought of where they were headed. The relief of knowing that the twins were safe had spurred on the realization in her that Harry wasn’t. They hurried after the rest of the team, Hermione, and Ron, breaking into the hospital wing in loud squeaking footsteps.

   “All of you just slow down,” Madam Pomfrey insisted, taking Harry’s arm and tucking it under the blanket.

   “Is he- is he-” Hermione tried to say, but couldn’t.

   “He’s alright, dear. Dumbledore slowed his fall. He’ll be alright once he wakes up…” She didn’t look pleased about it however, her eyes grave and her mouth tight. Kim remembered the first time she met Madam Pomfrey, and thought she must be worried about the Dementors’ effect on Harry. But the Dementours’ effects from long range contact were absolutely _nothing_ in Kim’s mind, compared to the shape she’d imagined he’d be in, were he alive at all. Relief was inflating her compacted lungs when Harry opened his eyes.

   “Harry!” said Fred. “How’re you feeling?”

   “What happened?” he asked, sitting up rather fast. Kim smiled a little at his rebound abilities, though it seemed to startle most everyone else.

   “You fell off,” Fred said rather bluntly. “Must’ve been, what, 50 feet?”

   “We thought you’d died,” said a Chaser from the quidditch team.

   “But the match. What happened? Are we doing a replay?” 

_He’s still asking about the match…_ Kim thought. She fought the urge to roll her eyes. _I swear, these boys… All they care about is quidditch!_ But again she couldn’t help but find it an insane and yet admirable trait.

   “We didn’t- _lose?_ ” Harry asked, looking worried now because no one had answered.

   “Diggory got the Snitch,” said George. “Just after you fell. He didn’t realize what had happened. When he looked back and saw you on the ground, he tried to call it off. Wanted a rematch. But they won fair and square… even Wood admits it.”

   “Where is wood?” Harry asked, looking over the many faces that had come to check on him.

   “Still in the showers,” said Fred. “We think he’s trying to drown himself.”

   Harry bent forward then, putting his face against his knees in defeat. He ran a hand through his dark hair and gripped it. Kim didn’t think she had ever seen him so torn up about something. Fred grabbed his shoulder and gave him a shake.

   “C’mon, Harry, you’ve never missed the Snitch before.”

   “There had to be one time you didn’t get it,” said George.

   “It’s not over yet,” said Fred. “We lost by a hundred points, right? So if Hufflepuff loses to Ravenclaw, and we beat Ravenclaw and Slytherin…”

   “Hugglepuff’ll have to lose by at least two hundred points.”

   “But if they beat Ravenclaw…” Fread reasoned.

   “No way, Ravenclaw is too good. But if Slytherin loses against Hugglepuff…”

   “It all depends on the points, a margin of a hundred either way—”

   “Stuff it, both of you,” Kim snapped, slapping one and then the other on the arm. They looked at her in surprise, like they had no idea what they’d done wrong, and then calmed when they took in her fiery expression. Their gaze shifted apologetically to Harry who sat there like he might have died after all. It was then that Madam Palfrey told the quidditch team they needed to leave Harry alone to recover.

   “We’ll come and see you later,” Fred told him, to which Kim nodded in agreement, looking apologetically at Harry still. She wished there was something she could do to make him feel better, but she knew there was nothing. She couldn’t change the fact that they had lost.

   “Just-” Kim started and stammered a bit. “Don’t beat yourself up about it, okay Harry?”

   “You’re still the best Seeker we’ve ever had,” Fred reasoned with a shrug as they started to go. None of it seemed to perk him up in the slightest.

   Kim, Fred, and George did go back to visit Harry while he was in the hospital wing. Still nothing they said seemed to improve his mood, though he was making a clear attempt at faking it. They were just giving up and about to leave when Harry said, “Kim-... uh, would you mind hanging back for a second?”

   Kim frowned with surprise, but slowed none the less. She looked back at Fred and George who had questions written all over their faces. She simply waved to them saying, “I’ll catch up.” Turning back to Harry’s bedside, she met his troubled gaze. “What is it Harry?”

   He looked increasingly uncomfortable. “You’re pretty decent and Divination, right?” From what Trelawney said, she was a fair score above _pretty decent_ but she nodded all the same.

   He seemed to be wrestling words on his tongue until finally he sighed. “Okay, look. I haven’t told Ron or Hermione about this because I know Ron will just panic and Hermione will think its complete rubbish… But I _have_ to tell someone or I’ll go mad.”

   “You can tell me. Whatever it is,” she assured him. 

   He swallowed. “I’ve seen the Grim. A few times.”

   Kim’s eyes went wide. It was one thing for a blotch of tea leaves to form the shape of a dog, but had Harry just claimed to have _seen_ the grim?

   “You-” she began, but then leaned in and continued in a whisper, peering over her shoulder cautiously. “You’ve _seen_ the Grim?”

   “Twice, yeah…”

   “Are you sure Harry?” Kim said, straitening and pulling up a stool for her to sit beside Harry’s bedside. Harry looked off as if he was thinking, but he certainly didn’t _seem_ sure.

   “Because I was doing some research,” she continued. “Well, I was researching something else, but I came across a lot about the Grim in my search, and _actual_ sightings of the Grim are very rare. Or what are thought of as actual. There’s a lot of debate about it, seeing as how anyone who supposedly _actually_ sees the grim, subsequently dies. But, there have been some who didn’t die immediately after. Which brings me to my next point, Harry. Divination is not cut and dry. It’s not like other magic, where certain spells _always do_ certain things. It’s far more fluid and flexible than that.” 

   Harry looked like he was trying very hard to listen through all this. “So you’re saying I’m not going to die?”

   “I’m saying I haven’t got any idea. And neither do you. The Grim is a concern, but… seeing it more than once? That’s just odd. Maybe it means something different for you Harry.”

   These words, finally at long last, did seem to lift his spirits a bit.

   “Try not to dwell on it too much. I’ve been reading on something, a phenomena that doesn’t really have a name, but I like to call it the Diviner’s Curse. Seeking the future is a bit of a toilsome effort… because having the future, isn’t merely about _knowing_ it. It’s about _bearing_ it. Do we choose to allow the inevitable to crush us? Or do we choose to forget the warnings we’ve been given and live life carefree? When you think of it, we have to make the same choice about death; accepting our own mortality, or ravenously trying to avoiding it… I don’t know the answer to the question yet, Harry… Anyway, I’m rambling. Sorry.”

   Harry looked like he was deep in thought as well, taking Kim in under a new light. Her eye contact shook him from his thoughts. “It’s okay. Thanks. For visiting and… well, for…”

   “I know,” Kim said with a smile. He wanted to thank her for listening. For giving him some honest and unanxious advice. “Anytime. Feel better soon, Harry,” she said with a smile, turning to leave the hospital wing and catch up with Fred and George.

* * *

   It was later in November that Kim spotted Harry, Ron, and Hermione walking down a corridor. She was just hurrying forward to catch up with them to say hi when she heard Ron say in a hushed voice, “Don’t you think it’s kind of odd? The way they tote her around and what not?”

   Kim stopped short, following at a safe distance so that she could hear but not be heard or noticed among the clusters of other students making their way along the hall. She wasn’t sure if it was the content of what Ron said, or the way he spoke in a tone that indicated he was referring to something secret that made Kim stop, but regardless the reason, she listened intently.

   “I mean don’t get me wrong,” he said with a shrug. “I like Kim. She’s a nice girl. I guess that why I sorta feel bad for her.”

   “What do you mean?” Harry asked, frowning a bit like he didn’t understand at all what Ron was saying.

   “I just mean that I know my brothers. I grew up with them after all. Fred and George… They’re like kids in a toy shop, you know. I’m just saying Kim’s the bright shiny new toy right _now,_ but before long they’ll be tossin’ her aside.”

   Kim stopped walking. She had heard enough. Someone bumped into her and complained about her sudden stop, but she didn’t apologize. She simply blinked, watching as Harry, Ron, and Hermione disappeared down the hall, melding into the throng of black robes. She knew Ron hadn’t meant her to hear it. He hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings. She tried to remind herself of his introduction. _I like Kim. She’s a nice girl._ It had sounded genuine. But that felt like a pale comfort in the face of the rumbling darkness that swirled in her stomach. All the doubt filled voices filled her head.

_They’ll toss you aside. Of course they will. They’re everything you’re not. They’re brave, they’re outgoing, they’re funny. Why would they really be friends with you when they could be friends with someone more like them? With a Gryffindor?_

   Kim didn’t see Fred and Georg at all that day, like she often times didn’t. But she couldn’t help feeling like today their absence was meaningful. Today, she couldn’t help feeling like it was the beginning of the end…

   That spiraling feeling continued for the next few days. Kim was increasingly busy with homework as the end of term was drawing near. She was dreading it, and not just because of tests, but for other reasons as well. For one she would be flying all the way home, which was a hassle. She had written home as promised to keep in contact, but mail was slow with such a far distance, and difficult to keep up with. So she felt entirely disconnected with her home in the US, and she was fearful of losing connection with her life at Hogwarts. These thoughts were swirling in her mind when Kim looked up from her homework to find Fred and George sitting down next to her.

   “You going to Hogsmeade?” Fred asked. Kim was surprised by the questions because she had entirely forgotten the next Hogsmeade trip was that day. Judging by the time, most students were probably already on their way out.

   “Uh, I don’t know. I hadn’t really planned on it,” Kim admitted.

   “Neither did we,” said George.

   “Well, we’re at least not leaving just yet,” Fred added.

   “Come get some fresh air with us,” George said, nodding toward the exit of the study hall. Kim was nowhere near finished with her homework, and she had already put it off too long…

   “What are you two up to?” Kim asked suspiciously as she stood to follow them out.

   “Just hate to see you studying on a day like today,” said Fred cheerfully. A little too cheerfully. He was only this high spirited when he was up to mischief. Kim followed them until they slowed in a corridor that was on the way to the Gryffindor common room.

   “I thought we were getting ‘fresh air’” Kim said, looking around the hallway pointedly.

   Fred drew in a long breath. “The air is pretty fresh out here,” he reasoned.

   “Besides, this is only stop number one,” George added. 

   Harry then came walking down the hall with his hands stuffed in his pocked, watching his toes. The twins swiftly, and with impressive stealth, dashed behind a great statue of a humpbacked, one-eyed witch. George grabbed Kim by the arm and pulled her along until she was securely hidden with her back against the witch.

   “Why are we hiding?” Kim whispered.

   “Dramatic effect,” Fred said, frowning as if she should have gathered this much on her own, and holding a finger up to his lips.

   “Psst—Harry!” he said as Harry passed by the statue. Harry paused and looked around before spotting the three of them peering out at him, the twins looking peevish and Kim looking a bit like a babysitter.

   “What are you doing?” Harry asked with genuine curiosity. “How come you’re not going to Hogsmeade?”

   “We’ve come to give you a bit of festive cheer before we go,” said Fred, with a mysterious wink. “Come in here.” Fred waved them into a classroom beside the one eyed statue and made a show of looking about before George closed the door behind them.

   “What is all this about?” Kim asked, growing a bit impatient. She wanted to feel excited with them, but she couldn’t help but feel she was on the outside looking in. She remembered what Ron had said. _They’ll toss you aside._

   “Early Christmas present for Harry,” Fred said, looking to him and pulling something out of his cloak. He smacked it dramatically against one of the desks so Kim could see it was a slightly crumpled, worn piece of parchment. And that was it.

   “Marry Christmas Harry,” Kim said flatly, to which Harry snickered and the twins looked at her with betrayal.

   “This, is the secret to our success,” Fred sad sharply, looking at Kim first but directing his gaze to Harry. “It’s a wrench, giving it to you, but we decided last night, your need’s greater than ours.”

   “Anyway, we know it by heart,” George said, shrugging. “We bequeath it to you. We don’t really need it anymore.”

   “And what do I need with a bit of old parchment?” Harry said, still smiling like he was enjoying himself whether it made any sense or not.

   Fred pursed his lips, muttering, “A bit of old parchment… Explain it George.” George then delved into a painfully long story that Kim was fairly sure she’d heard before about how the two of them had broken into Filch’s desk in their first year and stolen something- something they claimed to be worth more than gold. Kim had kind of stopped listening halfway through the story when George was suddenly taking out his wand and flicking it at the parchment.

   Kim watched with amazement as a map blossomed before her eyes reading _The Marauders’ Map_ in inky lettering. A map that showed where everyone in the castle was at one time. A map that showed all the secret entrances. A map that had a secret entrance leading directly to Hogsmead. It soon became clear that this was their intention. Harry was going to slip right past all the protections the teachers had put up for him, wander blindly into Hogsmeade with Sirius Black hunting him down, and with the Grim possibly following him in his shadow, predicting bad omens of maybe death. Kim screwed up her face with disbelief.

   “Right,” George was saying, “Don’t forget to wipe it after you’ve used it—”

   “Or anyone can read it,” Fred finished.

   “Wait, Harry… are you sure this is a good idea? Sneaking into Hogsmeade given… everything that’s going on?” Harry looked at her like she was a rain cloud, which was better than the twins who look at her like she’d just belched up purple slugs.

   “What’s gotten into you?” Fred asked incredulously.

   “More sense than what you’ve got, apparently,” Kim snapped, though she regretted being so harsh. She looked back to Harry, who was evidently uncertain yet of what he should do. “I know you want to go to Hogsmeade, but… I’m just worried about Black. Is it really going to be worth it in the long run, if something bad happens?”

   Harry seemed to be mulling this over when the twins began backing towards the door.

   “Well, I don’t see what the danger is,” Fred said, holding his hands out and letting them fall back to his sides in a dramatic shrug. She could tell he wasn’t pleased with her. “But, it’s your choice Harry. You get to decide what you want to do with it.” With that they were filling out of the classroom.

   Kim sighed. She really just wanted to curl up into bed and perhaps cry for a while, maybe let Strix kneed away at her cloak while she fluffed her feathers. She felt sure she had probably just triggered whatever inevitable end Ron had said was sure to come, and now Harry probably didn’t like her much either. _Maybe I was wrong after all,_ Kim thought with bones turning to lead. _Maybe I should have just made friends with Ravenclaw and not bothered with all this…_

   “Look Harry,” Kim said, hearing the tiredness in her own voice, “they’re right, ultimately it’s your choice. Do what you think is right. Just know the danger, that’s all I’m saying.”

   Kim left then too, not wanting to bother Harry with any more haranguing than she already had. She knew he was going to go. She knew it as certainly as she knew she was losing his as well as the other’s friendships. She could feel them slipping through her fingers like sand, impossible to hold on to, yet stuck to you invisibly to forever grit against your skin.

   She went up to her dormitory, thinking she might take herself up on the crying idea. But by the time she’d laid down in bed and Strix and hopped onto her stomach, pleased with her return, all she could do was worry. There was something kneading into the bottom of her gut, and it wasn’t her owl. Heptomology teaches you to follow your instincts. So before Kim knew what she was doing, she was pulling out the storage of herbs that she had kept from when she’d snatched some, enough for one more meditation. She lit the herbs and spread the smoke, moving her wand along the cloudy tendrils and whispering the words. She sat down on her bed, feeling the haze of the smoke already lifting her. Strix situated herself on Kim’s shoulder, but she hardly noticed.

   She was drifting away. She was nowhere at all. Certainly not anywhere with a body or a place. And then, abruptly, so abruptly it was like being forced out into the world for the first time, reborn and uncomfortable in new skin, she was _somewhere._ Crouched under a wooden table, her fingertips sticky from sweet residue, her heart pounding in her throat. She was hiding, wrists trembling, listening intently for something… _something… Sirius Black. Sirius Black. Sirius Black._

   Her mind seemed to screech it into herself. When her eyes opened she was in Ravenclaw Tower again, but now it was her own heart that was thundering, and everything seemed too dark for a moment. She felt a presence, like there was someone standing behind her shoulder, someone who raised the hairs on the back of Kim’s neck and cast what seemed to be a tactile shadow, felt rather than seen. She turned, her eyes creeping to look over her shoulder with apprehension, but there was no one. Nothing but Strix perched delicately on her shoulder, peering up at her with her golden yellow eyes.

_Something terrible is going to happen to Harry,_ Kim suddenly thought. Her entire body knew it was true. _And it’s got to do with Sirius Black._ If Harry was in trouble involving Sirius Black, Kim couldn’t just stand by and do nothing. Even if she wasn’t able to stop it from happening, even if the future was set in stone… she had to try. So she ran down the tower and strait to Dumbledore’s office. She was nervous about talking to him, but she didn’t think there was anyone else she trusted to understand.

   To her surprise, she was easily let in. She expected it to be difficult to speak to the headmaster. As she walked into the office, she couldn’t help but peer at the many oddities spread over the book cluttered shelves until her eyes landed on Dumbledore, long white beard and velvet old robes.

   “Hello, Miss Shimmers. How can I help you?”

   “Professor Dumbledore… I’m sorry to bother you but… I think something terrible is about to happen.”

   “Something terrible?” he said with an arched brow.

   “I… I know divination is considered a wishy-washy magic professor, but if I could just defend its usefulness for just one moment!” she hastily said, thinking he was going to try and interrupt her by the expression on his face. He smiled knowingly and allowed her to go on. “In my opinion, Professor, all magic is pretty wishy-washy, if you get really good at it. Magic can be made up, done without saying the spells, used in terribly unusual ways, or even performed without a wand at all… Divination isn’t easy, yes- because it’s trying to pull at magic that’s within us and in the world around us without using a wand. But that doesn’t make it a useless magical field.”

   Professor Dumbledore had been watching her intently through her speech with raised brows. He now gave a small nod. “Impressive, for such a young witch. You’re not incorrect. Divination, while often times may find itself at the end of a joke, is _not_ a useless study. It is merely a study so difficult that the number of true masters are few and far spread… Now, I can only assume this terrible news you have to tell me has to do with something that has yet to happen.”

   “Possibly. But I’m afraid it might happen at any second. You see-” she swallowed. She was about to take the plunge. If she told Dumbledore where Harry was, he would definitely get in trouble. But it might save his life. “I know Harry made it into Hogsmeade,” she finally said.

   “That’s quite a specific prophecy.”

   “Well… that one’s not a prophecy,” Kim admitted. “He told me he was going.”

   “I assure you, he cannot get past the guards.”

   “I _know_ he has a way to get in.” Kim had already thought about this before she’d entered Dumbledore’s office. If she could avoid involving Fred and George and their passage way, she would. “I don’t know exactly what way, but he was positive he could get in, and I’m positive he did. I had a… vision. It wasn’t completely clear, but I saw Harry hiding. He was afraid, his heart was pounding. And there was definitely some strong connection to Sirius Black. His name was connected all throughout the vision.”

   Professor Dumbledore’s calm features had gone serious. “And you saw all this… unexpectedly? Unprovoked?”

   “No,” Kim said, shaking her head. “I’ve been studying Heptomology in my spare time,” she admitted a bit sheepishly, but again, Dumbledore raised an impressed brow. “I meditated because I felt there was something I was… something I was supposed to be shown… I had a gut feeling, Professor.”

   Professor Dumbledore gave a flick of a smile, but there was no joy in it. It was almost rueful. “You may yet prove to be a very skillful Diviner, Miss Shimmers. But I must warn you,” he said, moving over to his desk and scribbling something on a piece of parchment as he spoke, “it’s a very heavy burden.”

   Kim just watched him finish the short note and clip it to Fawkes, his phoenix. “I know,” she said, feeling the weight on her now of what she had just done, betrayed one of her closest friends. “What are you going to do?”

   “Professor McGonagall as well as other’s are at Hogsmeade as we speak. They’ll find Harry, and they’ll bring him back safely.”

   “And what about then? I mean… if he comes back alright, I don’t want him to get into trouble. You have to understand why he went, Professor, he wasn’t trying to cause any trouble for anyone. He’s just under a lot of pressure right now, and the worst part about it is that he can’t have any fun on top of it, can’t enjoy the—”

   “Time he has left?” Dumbledore interrupted.

   Kim froze. “What makes you say that?”

   “You’ll find, if you haven’t already, that word travel’s fast around Hogwarts. I know of Trelawney’s prediction… And I agree with you. Harry will be in trouble, but-… I can forgive some childish mistakes, certainly. Before you go, Kim, I must warn you once more… You’re a clever girl. Divination can sometimes lead down a very dark path. It requires one to close their eyes and reach out into the shadow of the complete unknown, drawing back a piece of darkness for themselves to keep. A lot of terrible things tend to happen to those who look beyond the ripple of this reality. Be… advised.”

   Kim tried to pull in a steady breath, but it wavered despite herself. She gave a nod and with a returning nod of dismissal from Dumbledore, she was leaving. She walked down the corridor and paced for a bit. She was trying to think clearly but her mind was a dizzy mess. Finally she reduced herself to sitting outside the Gryffindor common room, worrying at the end of her robes. Was Harry alive? Was he safe? If so, what would he say to her when he found out what she’d done? After hours of incessant worry and turning over her thoughts, Harry, Ron, and Hermione approached.

   “Harry, you’re okay!” Kim said, stepping forward with relief. But Harry’s features were tight and untrusting.

   “Of course I’m okay, Kim. Why wouldn’t I be?”

   She didn’t answer. She already knew where this was going. After a passing silence, Harry hedged, “Did you tell Professor Dumbledore I was sneaking into Hogsmeade?”

   Still Kim couldn’t speak. She knew she should have words, clever words that were usually her weapons, but all she had was fear. She felt the last grains of sand slip between her fingers.

   “Harry, I-”

   “Did you?” he demanded. She had never seen him so man. In fact she had never seen him truly mad at all.

   “I was afraid you were going to be killed. I saw you in trouble, I _knew_ something bad was happening—”

   “Nothing bad was happening! Except that now I’ll be under even closer watch, _and_ I have detention. So thanks. Thanks loads for that,” he said, passing her and demanding Cadogan let him in. Kim felt her eyes water but she didn’t let herself cry. She marched away, returning to the Ravenclaw tower, where she sat alone in her bed, watching Strix pick at a knotted ball of cloth she’d gotten from Hagrid for her, because this bird was now her only friend.


	8. Not a Gryffindor

Chapter 8

Not a Gryffindor

   The next morning Kim had to hastily pack her things because she hadn’t done so the night before. It was very unlike her. Her eyes were swollen and purply-red when she went down for breakfast, and her head felt fat from crying through the night. She hadn’t wanted to allow herself, but she couldn’t help it. Something about the darkness of the dormitory felt so like her insides she couldn’t help but allowing the fortress walls to crack silently, and for the tears to come spilling out. She didn’t see Harry, Ron, Hermione or Fred and George for that matter. That didn’t stop her from looking for them over the heads of students as they were ushered out of the castle, evidently still holding onto hope that she could make amends before she left, trying to reassure herself that maybe at least Fred and George hadn’t completely abandoned her. But no such thing happened.

   “Are you alright?” Luna asked her on the train back to London.

   “Yeah, I’m fine,” she said in a spirited voice. It was so convincing it almost startled Kim. She didn’t know when she became such a good liar, because she supposed she’d always been. “I just think I’m coming down with something,” she said, gesturing lightly to her face which had no doubt been why Luna asked if she was alright. Luna smiled and nodded, believing her.

   The trip home was long and boring. It left her with her thoughts of abandonment and friendlessness. Her stomach wouldn’t settle. _What if Harry never forgives you? What if he’s right to be angry with you? Maybe you shouldn’t have told Dumbledore after all. Maybe you’re no good at divination, maybe what you saw was never going to happen. What if Fred and George find out what you did? They’ll probably be mad. They’ll probably never speak to you again._ All these thoughts were swimming in tandem with, _They’ll toss you aside._

   Seeing her family was briefly distracting. She still couldn’t quite feel like she belonged here, but at least she wasn’t being shunned away. At least everyone in her home was happy to see her back for the month she’d be with them. Her mother wasn’t even upset about Strix, though she was a little baffled by the choice of a screech owl of all things. Kim didn’t bother trying to explain that she hadn’t chosen Strix, rather the other way around.

   Retta demand she be told everything about her new boarding school, which was terrible because the only thing she could easily talk about was the people, given that Retta couldn’t be told a single thing about the magical school itself. But the people happened to be the last thing Kim felt like talking about.

   “Come on, you had to’ve met _someone_ cute,” Retta hedged.

   “Well sure,” Kim reasoned, stuffing her hands in her pockets as they walked around the neighborhood. It was chilly but there was no snow here yet, unlike Scotland. Still the two of them wore winter coats to protect from the occasional bighting wind. “I don’t know,” she finally continued, “I met some nice people, made some friends. But…”

   “ _But…_ ”

   Kim sighed. She decided it would be easier to just give Retta what she wanted than it would be to give her the utter truth. She didn’t want to tell her about the fight she’d had with her friends, nor did she have anywhere near the energy to try and figure out a non-magical analogy for what had happened between them.

   “Fine,” she said, as if she were giving up. “I did meet these two boys. They’re twins, and two years older.”

   “ _Twins_? What do they look like?”

   “Tall, kind of lanky. Orangy-red hair.”

   “Red heads?” Retta said excitedly. Kim shook her head, smiling despite herself. Retta’s insatiable excitement was a bit contagious. “So they’re cute?” she pressed.

   “Yes, they’re cute!” Kim admitted farther, feeling like she was being extorted, but she laughed about it all the same. “We’re uh… we’re friends, sort of. I don’t know, we kind of got in a little fight before we left. I guess it wasn’t that big of a deal, but now we can’t see each other to talk about it until we get back…”

   “Why don’t you write them?”

   Kim shook her head vigorously. She was then briefly surprised Retta hadn’t suggested calling but realized with long distance, she probably figured the phone wasn’t an option. It wasn’t an option, but for different reasons.

   “No, I couldn’t do that. For one thing, mail takes too long across this distance, and for another, they’re home… trying to spend time with their families. I don’t want to bother them. I guess I’ll just talk with them when I get back.”

   Retta nodded and it was quite for a moment in the eerie way only winter could be. “Do you like them?” she asked.

   “Oh, I don’t know,” Kim said, shaking her head. “I mean I love spending time with them both. Like I said, they’re my friends. My _close_ friends… or I mean, I _hope._ I guess I don’t really know how they feel about me…”

   Even with these thoughts roosting in the back of her brain, she still managed to have a joyful Christmas full of fire-side warmth, the smell of fresh pine, bright colored wrappings, and family. Her father came to visit Christmas morning, which was nice because she got to tell him about her classes in person. By the time she was preparing to return to Hogwarts, though, she was more than ready.

   She didn’t see any of her friends once back in school until her first Divinations class. She was, as usual, partnered up with Hermione. Kim swallowed a bit dryly. She hadn’t talked to Hermione after the incident with turning in Harry, so she didn’t quite know what to expect. Was she mad at her too? She sat down across from Hermione who cautiously offered over her palm for Kim to read.

   Kim must have been wearing an apologetic look on her face, absentmindedly glancing at Harry and Ron’s table, because Hermione looked over her shoulder at them and then said, “Don’t worry, they’re sore with me too.”

   Kim blinked, looking up from Hermione’s palm. _They’re_ mad _at Hermione?_ she thought. “What? Why?”

   She lowered her voice and leaned in. “Well, first of all because I don’t think you were necessarily wrong to turn Harry in. I mean, I just told them that I was sure you had your reasons.”

   Kim just stared, wide eyed for a moment as something swelled in her chest. It was the feeling of kindred friendship. “Thank you,” she said, and the genuine tone in her own voice almost made her throat clamp up.

   “That’s not all though. Harry was sent a broom. A Firebolt.”

   “What does that mean?”

   “It’s a very expensive broom. And when I say expensive, I mean it’s the Marc Jacobs of Quidditch brooms, Kim.” Kim’s eyebrow shot up, impressed and surprised at the girlish reference coming from her. There was a brief pause in which both the girls have an airy laugh before Hermione continued. “When I saw that there was no card with the gift, and Harry had no idea who sent it…”

   “Serius Black.”

   “Exactly! See, I’m not paranoid for thinking it. And if Black sent that broom, it’s probably all kinds of jinxed. Who knows what it could do to Harry. So, I told Professor McGonagall about the broom, and she agreed with me that it should be checked.”

   “And Harry is mad at you for that?” Kim asked. “It seems totally reasonable!”

   “Of course he is! The broom’s being confiscated for a week or so… I feel horrible that this sort of thing keeps happening to him, I really do… But you were there. When Harry-… When he fell of his broom.” Hermione’s voice was getting tight. “I just can’t imagine how I would feel if I knowingly let something like that happen, not if there was something I could do to prevent it!”

   “I understand,” Kim nodded solemnly, remembering the day too well. Harry dropping from the sky. Falling. Landing. Not moving. The feeling in Kim’s gut, the swirling unknowing of what had happened to her friend. “You did the right thing. Even if the broom’s not jinxed. Harry can deal with a little discomfort for a few days if it saves his life. He just doesn’t like people fussing over him, but honestly, someone’s got to, or the kid’s going to get himself killed.”

   Hermione laughed. “That’s what I’ve been saying for years.” Her expression grew darker then, like she was remembering something else she needed to say. “While they’re off sulking, I’ve got something else I need to talk to you about, but I can’t do it here. When have you got some free time?”

   After some debate they arranged a meeting time between them, even though Hermione’s schedule seemed impossibly full. Kim hadn’t noticed it before, but Ron might have been right about her taking _too many_ classes.

   Kim was waiting in the library, looking over some books about famous dragon riders when Hermione approached, sighing loudly and flopping into a chair at the table nearest to where Kim stood. She turned and surveyed the disgruntled looking Hermione.

   “What’s wrong?”

   “Ronald,” she grumbled. “He’s even more upset with me now. Crookshanks keeps trying to eat Scabbers,” she admitted, a bit shamefully. Kim slid into the seat across from her, leaning back onto the hind legs. She let out a sharp laugh.

   “Well, Strix keeps trying to eat Harry so I can’t imagine you’re much worse off,” she said with a rueful smile. This did seem to perk her up a bit.

   “Okay, now for what I was going to tell you,” she said, pulling a hefty book out of her bag and plopping it open on the table before them. It was _Defense Against the Dark Arts,_ one of Kim’s text books as well. She flipped to page 394. An illustration of a howling wolf beast looked up at her as Hermione swiveled the page around.

   “We didn’t have to write this essay, Hermione. Lupin canceled it when he came back from being sick,” she said, recalling that this was the page in the text that Professor Snape had demanded they read and write an essay on while he was substitute. Kim didn’t have class with Hermione and the others, but the subject matter was usually identical in her class period as well.

   “I know. But don’t you find it odd that Snape was so adamant on us doing _this_ topic? A topic on how to identify werewolves?”

   “Yeah, it was odd, but Snape is pretty odd all the time. What’s your point?”

   Hermione sighed, making Kim frown. She was obviously trying to make some larger statement, but Kim was missing it.

   “Professor Lupin is sick an awful lot,” Hermione pointed out, and though her tone was casual there was a pointed edge to her glare. The color drained from Kim’s face and her eyes went wide.

   “You’re not saying…” Hermione just watched as Kim worked it out for herself. “I’m guessing you referenced a calendar already?”

   “Of course,” she said, and paused, taking a steadying breath. “Every full moon, without fail. Snape is also giving him a potion. Harry saw it.”

   “A potion. I know about werewolves, but I don’t know anything about potions—”

   “Already looked it up—”

   “Oh, of course you did—”

   “It’s Wolfsbane. It has to be. It’s the only way Dumbledore would allow a werewolf to teach here.”

   “I’ll say. They can be extremely dangerous, around that time of the month. I’m assuming this potion does something to counteract Lycanthropy?”

   “It helps lesson the symptoms. It’s a terribly difficult potion, but Snape _is_ a master… essentially, it would give Lupin the ability to keep control over his mental functions for the most part while in werewolf form. That way he doesn’t…”

   “Kill anyone,” Kim finished for her.

   “Yes. Exactly.”

   “Well… that does explain a lot of things.”

   “I suppose it’s a big secret,” Hermione hedged. “You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

   “No, of course not. I like Lupin. He’s a good teacher. He’s constantly giving Ravenclaw house points on account of me knowing about the creatures he’s bringing in, sorry for you guys,” she said with a smirk. Hermione returned the look. She didn’t have to say that she wasn’t worried about Gryffindor’s house points. Kim was sure she was getting loads of them too, simply based on the fact she’d pieced together about Lupin being a werewolf when Kim hadn’t.

   “Good,” Hermione said, closing her text book and putting it away. “I wanted to at least check my facts with someone to be sure I wasn’t just being… paranoid.”

   “Don’t seem so. Right as usual,” Kim said with a sigh, leaning back as Hermione stood to head off to her next class.

* * *

   A few days later, Kim went down to visit Buckbeak. Much to her surprise, however, Buckbeak was not where he belonged. Usually allowed to roam relatively free, Kim couldn’t find him anywhere, and he wasn’t coming to her whistle like he always did. She trudged through the snow back to Hagrid’s cabin and gave a knock.

   “Hold on,” came a grunt from within. He opened the door and looked surprised at first, and then, to Kim’s bewilderment and slight offence, disappointed to see her. “Oh. Kim. Come on in then.”

   She was about to ask Hagrid if he was busy or something when she spotted Buckbeak sitting in the corner of his hut, collared and tied up.

   “There you are,” she said to Buckbeak, who perked up happily to see her. She walked to him and gave him a pat on his head, toward which he nuzzled affectionately.

   “Now Kim… There’s uh… There’s som’m I be needin’ to tell yeh.” Kim looked over her shoulder with a faint look of concern, waiting for Hagrid to continue. Strix hopped off her shoulder and greeted her friend by nuzzling into the feathers on Buckbeak’s head. “It’s ah… It’s ah… It’s abou’ Buckbeak.” His voice was growing tight, and Kim could almost swear she saw his eyes growing bleary. She stood up strait and turned to face him strait on, a full frown now shadowing her eyes. Hagrid wouldn’t look at her. “There tryin’ ta put ‘em down!” he wailed.

   “What? What do you mean?”

   “It’s the Malfoy’s! They got it in fer ‘em! They’re goin’ after poor Buckbeak because a’ what happen with Malfoy’s arm. Say he’s dangerous an’ wha’ not.”

   “ _Dangerous?_ Of course he’s _dangerous,_ he’s a hippogriff, what do they expect! If you don’t know what you’re doing and you act like a total buffoon, _yes,_ a massive taloned beast is going to be _dangerous_. This is complete nonsense,” Kim sputtered. “What’s going to happen exactly Hagrid, what are they going to do?”

   “Well, they’re‘ll be a trial. Where I can state Buckbeak’s case.”

   “That’s it then, we just have to make a perfect case for him.”

   “Tha’s wha’ the other’s said. Harry, Ron and Hermione. I’m jus’ afraid nothin’ I say is gonna matter in the end.”

   “Don’t think that way. We have to do the best we can. For Buckbeak. We won’t let the Malfoy’s get away with this.” She was speaking a bit firmly with him, but it seemed to help. He took a long sniff and wiped his eyes, nodding and looking steelier than he had before.

   “You’re righ’. Fer Buckbeack,” he said, looking over as the happy creature nipped playfully at Strix who was flapping around his head.

   With this news draining the life from Kim, and classes growing more and more demanding as they grew closer to the end of the school year, she hardly had any time to seek out her perhaps-still-friends. She spent her free time in the Ravenclaw common room usually, where she and Luna or Clemon would talk about nothing of extreme interest for a short time before Kim would sigh herself into homework and studying.

   If she was being honest with herself, she was sort of avoiding Fred and George. She wanted desperately to make up with them, but she was terrified they would reject her, and it was as if the longer she put it off, the longer she could pretend nothing was going on. That didn’t work at all, though. In reality, the longer she put it off, the more it drover her mad with worry that they would never make up at all, and that there had never really been much of a friendship between them to begin with. That there had only been whatever Ron had called it, two boys in a toy shop, admiring something new and shiny before it wasn’t new anymore.

   She was marginally comforted that Hermione was still a true and steadfast friend, but the girl was so tormented and drained with the massive amounts of homework she was doing, it was as if textbooks hung from her eyes and parchment ink bled from her nail beds. As January eked into Febuary, she became more and more of a drain to be around, and Kim became more and more home sick for Fred and George’s listless banter. She wanted to hear about the composition of stink bombs or willy zonkers, or whatever other nonsense they had to banter about. She wanted to drown out her heartache about Buckbeak with the sound of their back and forth, and the feeling of their elbows bumping rambunctiously against hers when they got truly excited.

   But as it turned out, Kim was a Ravenclaw. A coward. Not brave, not brassy. Because whenever she saw them in the dining hall, on the rare occasion that she did, she didn’t say anything. She simply watched, helplessly, as they had a jolly good time without her.


	9. Quidditch Cup

Chapter 9

Quidditch Cup

   It had been almost three months since she’d had anything other than a passing hello with Fred and George. It was late February, and Kim had been working with the more miserable than ever Hermione to give Hagrid a solid case to defend Buckbeak. Ron and Harry were still angry at both Hermione and Kim, and nothing, including the upcoming quidditch match between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, could lift Kim’s spirits.

   When Kim woke the morning of the match, she wandered unenthusiastically to the Great Hall. She wasn’t looking forward to the match at all because while watching this game would be considerably nicer due to the improved weather conditions, she had no idea where she was going to sit. She supposed she’d find Luna or Clemon in the Ravenclaw section. Kim had a hard time keeping up with whether or not Hermione and Ron were fighting, but if not they would certainly be sitting together, and if they were sitting together Kim would certainly _not_ be welcome near. All this, along with the fact that Clemon was eyeing Kim suspiciously as she walked up to the table with pins and flags, made Kim hesitantly decide to pick up the blue and bronze. It wasn’t that she didn’t want Ravenclaw to win… It was just that in her heart, she didn’t want Fred, George, or Harry to loose.

   And that feeling swelled even stronger as she sat down at the Ravenclaw table, which was bustling with nervous energy about how they were going to manage defeating Harry’s new Firebolt. Kim watched as the Gryffindor table was practically exploding with excitement and happiness over the game to come. Fred and George were there too. Kim got a sudden urge to go talk to them. Did she really have any concrete reason to think they were mad at her? It had been such a long time since they’d had their disagreement, she could hardly remember exactly what happened. Perhaps this was all just a misunderstanding. And it couldn’t hurt just to go over and say good luck, could it? That was neutral enough.

   Kim got shakily to her feet. Fred and George were standing and making their way out of the Great Hall. This was her only chance. She had to hurry. She almost lost the will right then and there. _Don’t be stupid. These were your friends… even if they aren’t anymore… and who knows…_ Kim saw flashes of the last quidditch match, of Fred and George embracing her as they embarked solemnly to witness the damage done to Harry, unsure if he was alive or dead.

   “Hey guys,” she said with a shaky cord running through her tone. They both turned casually until they caught sight of her. They gave her a quick look up and down and dawned smirking grins. Kim took a breath and opened her mouth to try and force out some form of luck wishing, but they cut her off with an ugly jeer. Arm in arm with each other, they leaned in and they _booed_. They were smirking at her, like she was a zoo animal they wanted to make angry so it’d be more exciting for them.

   “Ravenclaw, Ravenclaw, Ravenclaw,” they jeered, followed by another boo and then ugly laughter. Kim felt her face crumpling despite herself.

   “Well- good luck then,” she said sharply, only able to think of the last thing she’d meant to say as her throat got tight and her voice thick. Both their faces wiped clean of their expressions, but she didn’t stick around to watch what they did next. She hurried off to escape back up to Ravenclaw Tower, suddenly completely uninterested in watching quidditch at all.

   A few hours later dejected Ravenclaws started to return to the tower, and she pretended to be disappointed, but she honestly didn’t care. A number of them made fun of her for not having any house spirit and staying in all day, but she didn’t care about that either.

   For the following week, Kim made a pointed effort to avoid anything crimson and gold. She scowled anytime she thought Fred and George my look her way at breakfast, and she purposefully did not to look at them. She knew their friendship was over. They must’ve never had much interest in her anyway, just as Ron had said. She forked a piece of egg with more force than was necessary. Then a throat cleared to her left.

   She looked hesitantly over her shoulder. George was standing there, leaning against the table with a slightly uncomfortable look on his face. Kim could already feel Fred’s presence on her other side. She thought it odd for a moment that she couldn’t remember when she began being able to recognize them apart simply at a glance. It had become second nature, and still was, evidently. Still, their presence around her wasn’t the same as it once had been. Instead of comforted, protected she felt crowded.

   “Erm…” Geroge began awkwardly. She frowned. Since when were either of them short on words? “Fred and I kind of figured we might come apologize.”

   Kim’s frown only deepened. She looked at Fred on her other side as if to check with him if this was true.

   “What he means is,” Fred said, “we might’ve had a bit of a miss understanding the other day.” Kim just watched them wearily, which seemed to unnerve them farther. “We didn’t really _mean_ to scare you off like that. We figured you’d know we was only joking.”

   Kim looked back at George with a bewildered look on her face. He seemed to gather that she didn’t understand what Fred was talking about.

   “Aren’t you cross with us for the other day, before the quidditch match?”

   “Well, yeah, of course I am,” Kim finally said, a bit more sharpness in her tone than she wanted, but it was all she could do to keep it firm sounding. “I came over to wish you luck and tell you I was rooting for you and to be safe-…” her voice caught and she stopped herself to steady it. “And you two started booing me and laughing in my face.”

   “Yeah,” Fred said quietly. “We kind of realized afterwards that wasn’t one of our most tasteful moments.” Kim just looked at him, still with bewilderment. She couldn’t quite figure out what was going on. They don’t see her or talk over Christmas break. They ignore her for over a month after coming back. The first thing they do when they finally speak is boo her and yell at her, and now they’re apologizing for it? She’d felt certain they were disinterested in her friendship, but if that was the case, why go through all this effort to apologize?

   “Well, anyway,” George intervened into the staring contest between Fred and Kim with an awkward lilt to his tone. “We were just thinking we’d… see you around some time. But, um, wouldn’t want to disrupt your breakfast any farther so… be seeing you…” He gave a small wave, just a wiggle of his fingers, and turned around, Fred following him back to the Gryffindor table.

   Kim just sat. She contemplated what she should do. Half of her wanted to follow them right then, but she decided firmly against it. They had apologized, yes, but that still didn’t fully convince her that things were going back to normal. She had felt hope swelling in her chest, but she tried to ward against it.

* * *

   “You should talk to them,” Hermione whispered, nudging her head to where Ron and Harry were leaving the library. She had two classes with Harry and Ron, and before that had given them plenty of time to talk. Now it seemed like they always managed to be on opposite sides of everything.

   “I know. I want to, I just haven’t figured out what to say other than _sorry I turned you into the headmaster and got you in loads of trouble._ ”

   Hermione shook her head. “He wasn’t even in _that_ much trouble. He’s had worse.” Kim wasn’t convinced. They had apparently forgiven Hermione, which gave Kim a smidgen of hope. But then again, Hermione was a fellow Gryffindor, and she had also done a much smaller transgression in Kim’s mind, though Hermione had argued that it wasn’t. Not to mention, she had been friends with the two of them far longer than Kim had. Why should either of them care to make up with her? Why should Fred and George? And what was more, how had she managed to so thoroughly sully all her friendships in such a short amount of time?

   She lowered her eyes in internal shame as she remembered her failed vision. She supposed she was just as much a crackpot as Professor Trelawney seemed to be. After all, her vision didn’t seem to come true, and not just because she saved Harry in the nick of time by turning him in. It didn’t seem likely anymore that there was any danger at all. And what was worse, Black had managed to sneak into the Gryffindor common room yet again, and Kim hadn’t gotten a single vision or even gut feeling of danger about it. She had only been trying to protect Harry with her Divination. Some job she was doing.

   It was then that Fred and George sat a seat or two down from Kim, but they weren’t looking to her. They were grabbing the attention of Lee Jordan who was known to Kim as one of the twin’s best friends.

   “Everything’s all set!” Fred was saying, and his voice was at its most giddy.

   “Yeah, now all you’ve gotta do is win the bloody cup,” Lee said with a smirk.

   “Don’t worry, we will,” they said in unison, pulling at their collars in over exaggerated confidence. Kim couldn’t help the smile that tugged on either end of her mouth.

   “I recon it’s gonna be the craziest party this castle’s ever seen,” George said, and then glanced over, catching Kim’s eye. “Say! You should come too!” sounding even more excited than before. Kim’s smile widened despite herself.

   “Come to what?” she asked.

“The celebration party, of course,” Fred said, standing so he could see Kim over George’s head.

   “Celebration of what? Do I even want to know?”

   “Of winning the Quidditch Cup!” They both said.

   “So sorry for Ravenclaw loosing,” George said.

   “Well, not really.”

   “Because that means all we have to do now is beat slimy Slytherin!” George said.

   “And we definitely will,” Fred said.

   “And afterwards—”

   “We celebrate!” they said together. Kim felt a little overwhelmed by the sheer static, excited energy that was coming off them in sizzling waves. She laughed.

   “Calm down. Okay, of course I’ll come to—”

   “She can’t,” Hermione said, and her tone sounded a bit annoyed. Kim looked over to see that her expression was sorry, though.

   “Why not?” George asked, a little demandingly.

   Hermione did a small eye roll. “Isn’t it obvious? The party is to be held in the Gryffindor Common Room. Kim won’t be able to get in,” she said, her eyes landing on Kim, again with a sorry expression. Of course she was right. Kim had no idea that was how these things worked, but the boys had to know… Why would they invite her to a party that they knew she couldn’t get into? Especially since they _knew_ she was still a bit annoyed with them for bothering her so much about being Ravenclaw. Her eyes slid up to them with a hint of anger in them. They both looked crestfallen.

   “Oh…” Fred said plainly. He slowly sat back down.

   “I guess she’s right,” George said with a shrug, but when he met Kim’s glare there was something sheepish in his expression. Kim gave a hot sigh and turned back to her studying.

   “Well, have fun,” she said plainly. She was rediscovering her belief that it was impossible to be friends across houses- usually.

  It was later that same week that Hermione delivered bad news to Kim for the second time. Hagrid had lost his first hearing. Kim wasn’t surprised. She and Hermione had collected a solid defense, but Hagrid wasn’t a people person, and wasn’t good at public speaking _at all._ There would be a chance for a retrial, but Hermione said Hagrid had seemingly lost hope. By the redness in her eyes, and the gleam, it seemed like she had as well. Kim, on the other hand, refused. She didn’t know how yet, but she would work with Hagrid until they were winning his case for certain.

   It was in that same conversation that Hermione had wished Kim a sheepish happy birthday. Hermione, Clemon, and Luna were the only ones to even _know_ it was Kim’s birthday that day, and she couldn’t say she’d had a good one, since the only gift she’d received so far was to find out Buckbeak was still on trial for death. But she wouldn’t let it all break her will. She wouldn’t lose another friend.

* * *

   “Well, I for one am rooting for Slytherin,” Clemon said, referring to the quidditch finale that was the next morning. Most Ravenclaw’s were Gryffindor supporters but there was a decent camp that were like Clemon.

   “Why’s that?” Luna asked in a light tone, casual.

   “Slytherin is going to win. Gryffindor hasn’t won in a long time, it’s just the smart choice. Although, I admittedly tend to dislike Gryffindor’s… especially ones like those Weasley twins. I don’t know how you’re friends with them.”

 _I’m not,_ was the first solemn, depressing thought that entered Kim’s mind but she didn’t say that allowed. She simply smiled up at Clemon from where she lie sprawled across the couch and said, “I somehow manage with you.” Luna gave a very faint hooting sound and Clemon pursed her lips, but it morphed into a smile despite herself. Knowing Clemon decently well, she knew the girl prided herself on being particular, difficult, and somewhat unlikable. So saying so was actually a compliment.

   The next day, Kim did go to the game, and she did wish Fred and George a brief good luck. They smiled at her impishly, which she didn’t return because she was still confused by their behavior as of late. She even sat with Hermione and Ron, though Ron didn’t really speak to her much, and Hermione sat between them. The game gave them plenty to be occupied with anyway, because it was a clear day, allowing them to see all. Allowing them to see _all_ the foul play and intensely close calls. This was an even more tightly wound match than Kim’s first, and it was a much better spectacle without the rain blurring everything.

   In the end, Gryffindor won, and Harry held up the Quidditch Cup. Even though she knew he was still mad at her, she couldn’t help clapping and cheering for him. The excitement soon drained from her however, as she quickly realized she was about to watch her once-were friends file toward the Gryffindor common room for what was supposed to be the craziest part this castle had ever seen. All the while, she would sulk up to her Tower and dream of omens and loneliness.


	10. A Good Marauder

Chapter 10

A Good Marauder

   Kim trudged up to the castle, listening to the sounds of Gryffindor’s cheering all the way along. Their wails and chants should have been contagious. Kim wanted to be cheerful with them, but she couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for herself. The noise only grew louder as she made it into the castle. She was halfway to the Ravenclaw Tower when the sound of running feet behind her made her slow.

   “You’re a difficult woman to find!” Fred said as he slowed beside her. He was still wearing his quidditch gear, though the tips of his shaggy hair was still damp from the showers. George was there beside him in the same state, but he had a wad of fabric bundled under his arm.

   “I didn’t know I needed to be found,” Kim said plainly, looking between the two of them.

   “Come with us,” George said, an excited smile on his face.

   “What are you two doing here? I thought you had your party to go to,” she said, a bit too sharply. She recognized the hardness in her tone, so she added, “Since you won and all. Congratulations by the way.”

   “Oh, don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of time to congratulate us,” Fred said, taking hold of her forearm and pulling her forward.

   “Where are we going?” she demanded, getting annoyed now.

   “You’ll see,” George said. She had half a mind to rip her arm out of Fred’s grasp and start demanding that they tell her where they were taking her at once. But there was something calming in George’s eyes that persuaded her otherwise. In a minute they were slowing outside of the Gryffindor common room entrance. There was the Fat Lady, reinstated as portrait, and two ugly gargoyles keeping watch on either side since Sirius Black had managed to break into the common room twice now. The twins both crouched so Kim did the same, peering up the steps to the gargoyles that were now all but out of sight, the tops of their heads still just barely visible.

   “Hurry, stairs won’t stay still for long,” Fred said.

   “Here, take off your robes,” George said, reaching for the ball of fabric under his arm.

   “What?” Kim said indignantly, her voice shooting up in octave.

   “You’re not naked under there are you?” Fred asked sarcastically, because obviously her skirt and sweater were visible to the eye. She then realized they meant for her to take off _just_ her robe, and so she reached for the clasp, glaring at Fred all the while.

   “And your tie,” George added, voice hushed and hurried as he looked over his shoulder. She eyed him nervously, wondering what he was going to ask her to take off next, but she obeyed, loosening her tie and handing it over as he reached forward to swing the black fabric he’d brought with him over her shoulders. She realized it was another cloak, and before she could comment, Fred was flipping up her collar and stringing through another tie. The colors were red and gold.

   “What are you doing?” she asked, thinking she was starting to catch on, but it was mad. Could they really be…

   The cloak was too big, the sleeves dangling far beyond her wrists, the tails hanging on the floor. The tie was also long but it was stuffed in her shirt so it hardly mattered.

   “Is this yours?” she said, holding up the dangling sleeve of the cloak to the boys, but they ignored her.

   “Ready George?”

   “Ready Fred,” he said with a nod, and he shifted to crouch closer to Kim, putting his hand on her back.

   “Wait, ready- ready for what?” Kim asked, her whispering voice coming out high and rasping as Fred turned and stood. He marched up the stairs to the Fat Lady.

   “Alright,” George whispered to her. “When I say go, we run. And stay close. Got it?” His eyes were darting up the stairs so she could only imagine that was where they were running to. It seemed obvious what they were doing now, but it was mad. It was really, really _mad._ Kim swallowed hard. Was it too late to back out? Did she want to?

   “Oh, and just so were clear, when I say run, I _mean_ run,” George continued. Kim could hear Fred saying the password to the Fat Lady as George spoke. She swung open, and once she was about halfway to her widest, Fred let out a mangy hoot. It was the kind of jeer she would expect from him, given the fact they had just won the Quidditch Cup.

   “ _Gryffindor forever_ ,” he cried at the top of his lungs, his head thrown back, and then there was a pop and a hiss.

   “ _Now,”_ George grunted, pushing against Kim’s back lightly. She sprung to her feet and ran beside George who belted up the stairs. Her legs struggled to keep up with his long ones that took the steps multiple at a time. She almost tripped on the oversized cloak and tumbled to the stony sharp stairs.

   “Hurry!” George hissed, as she gathered up the ends of the cloak and continued up. There was billowing smoke hissing quickly out of the entry way to the Gryffindor common room. The gargoyles were now covered from sight, and George and Kim were upon the entrance. The entrance that was closing, and fast.

   George grabbed Kim by the arm and pulled her through with an extra tug of speed, the picture frame hitting her lightly in the hip as she was half in, half out.

   “Oh, get in there Fred, for heaven’s sake,” cursed the Fat Lady, as she bounced lightly off of Kim, and she squeezed the rest of the way through. Kim was now standing in a miniature hallway that led into the Gryffindor common room, breathless and shrouded slightly in smoke, George’s hand still gripping her back. She could just see his features through the thinning smoke, and he looked almost as breath taken as she was. He released her, his lips tightening and his hand flying to the back of his head.

   “What are you two _doing_?” she asked for the umpteenth time that night, but there was a wild smile spreading across her face. “I’m going to get caught in here for sure.”

   “No you won’t,” said Fred, with his eyebrows turned up, looking pleased and sure of himself. “There’s way too much going on, and you fit right in. George and I figured we owed it to you to get you in here.”

   “Since we’ve been making such a muck of things lately.”

   “Yeah, sorry about all that,” Fred said. “This is our way of, shall we say, reextending our hand of friendship. You can leave if you like but, uh,” he glanced down the short hall to the noisy common room. Kim followed his gaze to see swarms of Gryffindors packed into a tight area, chanting and singing, passing around the Cup, drinking and eating sweats and setting off noisy instruments of miniature chaos from Zonko’s. Kim’s smile widened.

   “Alright, you’re forgiven,” she said immediately. “But what about Percy! If he sees me, he’s _going_ to say something.”

   Fred and George then looked at each other, even more pleased with themselves, which Kim wouldn’t have thought possible.

   “I don’t think Percy is going to be saying much of anything tonight,” Fred said, and fished something out of his quidditch uniform pocket. There was a squirming fat toad whose eyes were looking around wildly and throat was expanding rapidly, as if it were agitated. Squinting at it, Kim saw it had a little chain hanging around its warty neck, and clipped to it was a pin that read _Head Boy._ Kim’s hands flew to her mouth to conceal here maniacal grin.

   “Is that Percy?” she asked, unable to keep the glee from her tone.

   George cleared his throat as Fred simply smiled broadly. “As Fred was saying, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

   Fred put the toad back in his pocket, murmuring, “There, there, be a good little Head Toad.”

   “C’mon, let’s join the festivities,” George said, waving her along. She was about to follow, as Fred was doing, but she hesitated.

   “Wait,” she said suddenly, and they both turned, looking expectantly at her. “What if no one wants me there? I mean, I _am_ a Ravenclaw. What if they get mad that I’m… crashing their party.”

   George took a step closer to her so that he could speak in a quiet voice and still be heard. He took her in, eyebrows raised just slightly in that singular way of is that felt so welcoming. She wondered if she had imagined him ever being mad at her at all, because with the warm way he was looking at her now she couldn’t imagine they were ever anything but the closest of friends.

   “No one’s going to be mad you’re here, Kim. Everyone likes you, Ravenclaw or not,” he said gently, and the words washed over Kim like dipping a sore jointed body into a warm bath.

   “And if they do, they can blow it out their ass, we brought all the supplies, it’s our party,” Fred reasoned, making Kim laugh. With that she followed the two of them into the crowd. And they were absolutely right. No one cared that she was a Ravenclaw, all they cared about was the joy of the party.

   At first, no one seemed to notice, but as a few people here and there did, it was more with impressed voices that someone had managed to sneak in to join the festivities than it was revulsion that she’d come to ruin their Gryffindor-only fun. There were games, and retellings of the match, and then full reenactments, as more and more butterbeer was drank. Harry, Ron, the twins and many others hopped onto brooms, umbrellas, lamps, and any other object that remotely resembled the basic shape of a broom. They jumped onto furniture and sprang place to place to resemble flying, thrashing into one another, usually ending in so much laughter that the scene could never be properly acted out. There was dancing wildly about to chants and cheers for Gryffindor, and to music.

   Kim thought it must be getting late in the night, though she had no idea what time it actually was. She spotted Harry sitting on the couch, laughing at Fred and George using a first year as a prop to demonstrate how to properly propel a bludger (a pillow in this demonstration) into an opponent. She was full of just enough Butterbeer and just enough lively energy to feel like anyone should forgive her. After all, tonight was a night for celebrating. So she slid into the open seat next to him.

   “You played great Harry,” Kim said, with a silly smile.

   “Kim! What are- How did you get here?” he asked looking around as if to check that he was in fact still in the Gryffindor common room. He looked more bewildered than upset though, so Kim took that as a success.

   “Fred and George snuck me in. Figured they owed it to me since they’ve been kind of jerks to me for the past few weeks. Speaking of jerks, Harry…” she said, shifting her fond gaze from the boys and back to Harry. “I’m really sorry for turning you in,” she said earnestly.

   “You are?”

   “Yeah! I swear, I was genially scared for your life Harry. And I know you hate it when you think people are babying you, but just because people want to protect you doesn’t mean they don’t think you’re capable of handling yourself, that’s not it at all,” she said, shaking her hands. “Think about it. Powerful, capable people get killed all the time. I mean you killed Voldemort when you were a baby, didn’t you? I’m just saying Harry, not everyone who tries to help you is calling you incapable… we just care… is all.”

   “I know,” he finally said, much to Kim’s surprise.

   “You do?”

   He was looking at the ends of his uniform, pulling at a thread. “Yeah. It’s okay, really, I’m not mad. I probably over reacted in the first place… Sorry about that…”

   “No, it’s okay. I got you into a lot of trouble for no reason.”

   Harry shrugged. “Dumbledore didn’t really go hard on me. He gave me detention with Lupin, which I think he did on purpose because I was already spending a few hours a week with Lupin training to ward of dementors… so it didn’t really make a difference, in the end.”

   “Oh. I guess he listened to me then. I told Dumbledore to go easy on you, that it wasn’t your fault…” Kim sighed. “I know this is going to sound stupid, but the reason I told him you’d gone is because I had a vision about you.”

   “You had a what?” he asked, shifting a bit to face Kim more, a twinge of concern clear on his features.

   “I had this gut feeling something bad was going to happen to you if you went to Hogsmeade, so after you left I went and meditated. And I got this vision of you sitting under a table, hiding, scared out of your mind… and the whole thing was about Sirius Black, I don’t know how I know, just that his name was reverberating around the whole vision. After that I thought, I _had_ to do something. But I guess I turn out to be a quack after all. Since none of that seems to add up to anything, and Serious has apparently been he—”

   “Actually,” Harry interrupted, looking a bit unsettled. “You’re vision wasn’t wrong, Kim, you just… read it wrong.”

   “What?”

   He looked around to see that no one was paying them any mind. The room was so loud that he had to lean in very close for Kim to hear him speaking in his low tone.

   “I _was_ hiding under a table, but it wasn’t from Black. McGonagall and a bunch of other professors came into the Three Broomsticks while I was there, and I was hiding from _them._ And I mean I was scared… of getting found out.I was also listening to them telling a bunch of secret… really…” He gritted his like just the thought was making him angry. “Really _bad_ things about Black. I found out that he was actually one of my parents’ best friends… he betrayed them in the worst way possible, betrayed them and got them killed. He’s my godfather.”

   Harry was staring off at nothing, eyes gleaming with hatred. Perhaps that was why Harry had been in such a terrible mood these past few months. Maybe his anger at her only seemed exaggerated by all this that she hadn’t know about. She now wished she had come forward long before, but there was no time for regrets. All of this also meant something else. She wasn’t a useless Diviner. She _had_ seen a true vision of Harry under a table, hiding, and it _had_ been a terribly bad thing. It had led to him learning some of the worst news he’d ever received. It was clear he was still seething over it even now.

   “I’m really sorry about all that, Harry. And I’m sorry I only made matters worse,” she said a bit shamefully. Harry cleared the shadows out of his eyes and looked at her.

   “No, it really is fine. I’m fine. I just won the Cup. I’m surrounded by friends,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m not gonna let anything bother me.”

   “So you’re sure you’re not mad at me anymore?”

   Harry looked at her and smiled. “You snuck all the way in here just to celebrate for a house that isn’t even yours,” he pointed out with a bit of laughter in his tone.“Course not.”

   Kim smiled and stuck her tongue out in jest. Just as she was about to get up to get more Butterbeer, the door to the common room swung open and Professor McGonagall marched in.

   “Alright, Alright,” she said, as Kim’s eyes grew wide and she sunk farther into the couch than she thought possible. “Everyone get off to bed! Oh, you’ve made a mess of this place,” she muttered, looking at the glasses and wrappers and streamers that littered the floor. Students were starting to clear out, and the thick coverage of bodies was starting to thin. Harry looked at Kim with concern as she sat, frozen, with no idea what to do.

   “Congratulations, by the way Potter-” McGonagall began, but she cut herself short because her eyes landed on Kim sitting beside Harry. She’d been caught.

   “Miss Shimmers, is that you?” McGonagall asked with rising inflection. Fred and George stood across the common room, watching with worried expressions as the rest of the students froze on their way to their dormitories to watch the scene unfold. All eyes turned to Kim, and all she could do was shake her head feebly in response to Professor McGonagall’s most likely rhetorical question.

   “Miss Shimmers, I assure you, while you may wear robes of a different color, the disguise is not convincing. What in heaven’s name are you doing in here? And at this hour?”

   Kim cleared her throat and stood from the couch, figuring she already had the eyes of every Gryffindor on her. May as well own it.

   “I came to celebrate?” she said with a half-smile and a shrug. Fred and George cheered behind McGonagall, and a few other’s joined in, but the professor’s backward glair silenced them quickly.

   “And how on earth did you get in here? Someone had to’ve let you in.”

   She saw Fred and George stepping forward, but she knew immediately that she didn’t want them to take the fall for her on this. They had done this for her as a gift. It was such a kind gesture, she didn’t want to see it cause them any trouble.

   “No, professor,” Kim said in a sturdy tone. “I got in myself.”

   The twins looked first at each other in surprise, and then at her. They dawned an expression of realization, followed by awe, followed by what Kim could really only think of as pride. They crossed their arms and nodded, muttering, “That’s our girl.” To the students around them, and Professor McGonagall, they sounded impressed that their friend had managed to break into another house’s common room all by herself. Kim knew they were recognizing her as she went down with the sinking ship.

   “Got in yourself?” Professor McGonagall said like she hardly believed it. “And how exactly did you manage to do that?”

   Kim hesitated. “Well… I wouldn’t be much of a marauder if I gave away all my secrets,” she said, with a slight challenging wiggle to her brow. McGonagall lowered her head to look at Kim warningly, and normally it would have been enough to crumble Kim’s defenses, but Fred and George had burst into a jeer when she’d finished her reply, and even Harry was snickering at her side with approval. As she glanced around at the other Gryffindor’s she could see that they were impressed with her, whispering things about how it should be impossible for another house member to sneak in all by herself.

   McGonagall finally huffed when she realized that it was no good. “That’s enough, off to bed with the rest of you! As for you Miss Shimmers, you’ll be serving detention with me. For a _long_ time. Honestly I’d have expected better of you. I understand wanting to join in the festivities, but you know the security situation this particular dormitory is currently under!”

   Kim looked at her a bit sheepishly, following her toward the exit. “I know, Ma’am. I’m sorry.” She threw a last glance at Fred and George who were still watching her leave with approving eyes, like older brother’s watching their youngest make it onto the team. She smiled and followed McGonagall out of the common room. She didn’t really care that she would be serving detention for a while. She didn’t care if she’d be serving it for the rest of the year. She’d gotten her friends back. What was more, she realized she’d never really lost them in the first place.


	11. A Promise Kept

Chapter 11

A Promise Kept

   Kim’s exams were harder than those at Lemmonforth, but she was well prepared. She expected to do decently on most, and knew she did excellently on a few, such as Divinations, which was a total joke and easily faked anyway, Defense Against The Dark Arts, and both of her Creature related classes, though she was hardly proud of Care of Magical Creatures since the exam was designed so you’d essentially have to _try_ in order to fail. Kim couldn’t blame Hagrid, given how distracted he was about Buckbeak’s upcoming retrial, but honestly, who couldn’t manage to keep flobberworms alive for an hour? All they did was sit there and throb like disgusting green maggots.

   Regardless, Kim was in a good mood because she was sitting between Fred and George at dinner, and she had just finished all her exams.

   “I was just thinking we should find a good way to send off the first years before the year’s over,” Fred said, squinting into the distance as if he was formulating a masterpiece in his mind.

   “And by ‘send off’ you mean something along the lines of filling all their underwear with itching powder, am I correct?” Kim asked, for mock clarification. She of course knew this was exactly the kind of thing Fred meant.

   “I like the way you think, but I want something… showier.” Kim laughed and rolled her eyes. Ron, Harry, and Hermione approached then, looking rather sullen. They had been eating farther down the table, and had waved back to her but hadn’t seemed very enthusiastic for students who had just finished their tests.

   “Kim, there’s something we need to tell you,” Harry said, and Kim turned sideways in her seat. “It’s Buckbeak… he’s lost his second hearing… they’re going to execute him.”

   Kim’s jaw dropped and her stomach fell. It was as though Harry had slapped her across the face.

   “What?” she said, hands starting to tremble and eyes growing hot. With all the effort they’d put into it, with how clearly Buckbeak was innocent, Kim had been entirely certain that Buckbeak would have been cleared. She hadn’t allowed herself to consider their failure because… because…

   “This is terrible,” she said, her throat clamping and her face crumbling. She felt the tears welling hot in her eyes, and she ducked into her hands. She didn’t want to cry in front of Fred and Georg and everyone else for that matter, but she couldn’t stop herself. An awful shudder wracked through her body.

   “Hey…” George said, though it was clear in his tone he didn’t know how to comfort her. She felt a hand on her shoulder, gentle and comforting, and another on her back, giving her an encouraging pat. She wiped her eyes and looked up at Harry, still bleary.

   “We have to do something!”

   Ron looked like he might be sick, Hermione like she was holding back tears as well, and Harry just looked at her with a determined grimace.

   “I don’t know-…” Harry started to say, but he couldn’t finish.

   “I don’t think there’s anything left we _can_ do,” Hermione said.

   “We _have_ to keep trying. Poor Buckbeak, he’s innocent! They can’t do this, _its wrong!_ ” she wailed. She sucked air in through her mouth and tried to gather some semblance of presentableness, but she could feel herself rattling apart again the moment she thought on the pure injustice of it. _How can this happen? Despite everything we did to prevent it?_

   “We’re going down in secret,” Ron said quietly. “To support Hagrid and everything—

   “I can’t,” Kim wept, and let out a miserable sound of defeat. She buried her eyes and forehead in George’s shoulder while Fred continued to pat her back solemnly. George felt stiff for a moment, but he accepted her in and allowed her to essentially hide herself in him. She knew it was stupid, but she just wanted to disappear.

   “Why not?” Harry asked timidly, like he was afraid she would explode with so many tears she’d drown them all. “We can take you, it’s fine—

   “I have _detention_. McGonagall will find me, and it’ll get the lot of you in trouble.” She drew in a long sniffing breath, sitting up and wiping her eyes. She looked at Harry again with as strong a look as she could muster.

   “Promise me Harry. Promise me if there’s a single thing you can manage to do to save Buckbeak, you’ll do it.”

   Harry’s jaw hardened. “I promise that if there _is_ a possible way, I will.”

   Kim nodded and heaved a heavy sigh. She started to stand from the table, murmuring, “I have to go write 150 lines of ‘I will not allow myself to be influenced by trouble makers like Fred and George Weasley’.” And she shuffled off to do just that, as that was McGonagall’s punishment. While Kim had taken the fall for the boys, she was almost positive that the professor was more than a little speculative of the truth.

   It was the longest detention she’d ever been through. She’d sat through countless by now, but she’d done so proudly, never feeling truly punished until now. Even McGonagall seemed to feel sorry for her when she saw the swollen defeated look in her eyes. When finally it was over, she trudged up the stairs and through the hall, her thoughts consumed by the fact that Buckbeak was probably dead, and she wouldn’t know until tomorrow when she confronted Harry, Ron, and Hermione. And then, as if in response to these thoughts, Harry and Hermione came trudging down the hall.

   “Kim,” they said, sounding exhausted, excited, relieved… and too many other things to surmise from just one word. Kim looked them up and down. They were haggard, dirty, with torn bits of close here, and a cuts with a smattering of blood there.

   “What _happened_ to you two?” she asked, eyeing them with furrowed brows.

   “Well, for starters, I kept my promise,” Harry said. He was a little breathless, and dewed with sweat, but a smile crept across his features as Kim began to realize what he meant. And in his features she got the confirmation she needed to the unspoken question; _you saved Buckbeak?_ She threw her arms around him, and he around her, laughing a little at her extreme gratitude.

   “Oh, Harry! Did you really? How?” she asked, releasing him and looking at them both. They chuckled, saying it was a long story, and delving into a brief summation of what seemed to be a convoluted tale. What became clear to Kim by the end was that there were a few key points of relevance. Hermione had been right, Lupin was a werewolf. They had all been wrong about Serious Black. Except Kim, she reminded herself smugly, who had never once seen a foreboding omen or vision related to Sirius attacking, merely saw a vision related to him that she had severely misinterpreted. That was an experience she planned to learn from. Ron’s rat was actually Peter Petegrew, the real traitor, and the real reason Black had been lurking in the shadows in the shape of his animagus, a spectral-looking dog. And lastly, but most importantly to Kim, Buckbeak was saved and no one was seriously harmed in the process. Save for a few dementors which Harry evidently blew away with a full-fledged patronous. Kim congratulated him on that feat. All in all, much more than she could have asked for from the last day at her new school, which now oddly felt like her long-time home. 

   Kim let Harry and Hermione go on their way, because they seemed to be in quite a rush to get back somewhere. Kim headed up to her dormitory with a smile. Falling asleep was easy, because for the first time in what felt like a long time Kim had nothing to weigh on her thoughts. But that didn’t mean her sleep wasn’t fitful.

   She was crouched behind a rock, her finger’s aching and her breath coming in ragged draws. There was something on the other side of the rock. Something that was trying to _kill_ her. She heard the sound of loud breath and felt heat lick along the edges of her arms. When the sound subsided, she looked around the rock cautiously, still heaving in uneven drags of air.

   There was a dragon clawing its way near.

   Kim’s eyes flew open, but she was paralyzed in the dark dormitory. Fear crept up around her body, clasping her wrists and ankles. It was the same feeling as before, the feeling that she was not alone. She closed her eyes and gathered herself before opening them again. Of course there was nothing in the room besides sleeping girls. Now that the fear was passing and the feeling of being watched by a pair of unseeable eyes, Kim was left to dwell on the dream. It was a premonition, she was sure of it, and she had once again been Harry rather than herself. _Harry face a dragon?_ she thought. _That’s absolutely insane._

   She turned her head to press her cheek against the cool pillow and look up to where Strix sat in her open cage, appearing to be napping. _Maybe it wasn’t a vision,_ she thought, though it went entirely against what her gut was telling her. _There’s just no logical way it could be true… Could there?_

_The End_

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOOK FOR SEQUEL: First of all, thanks for reading! You can find the sequel to this story, Kim Shimmers and the Diviner's Curse posted in it's entirety on my page. More to come about Kim's visions, Strix, and of course Fred and George drama! 
> 
> Also, if you really enjoy my fanfic, you could also check out my original work on Amazon! Here's the link:  
> http://www.amazon.com/Desiderium-War-Within-Katherine-Frances/dp/1502845717/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1443987397&sr=8-1&keywords=desiderium

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE ABOUT CONTENT: This story is taking place during the time of Harry's 3rd year and contains some scenes from Prisoner of Azkaban (though usually quite altered because they are from Kim's POV) However, in these scenes there are some instances of direct quotes used for character dialogue. I did this when Kim's actions wouldn't reasonably change the other characters' dialogue, but she would need to be present for something that was said. I did this to maintain the feelings that the characters ARE JK's character's in how they speak and act, and I kind of hope readers will even notice the quotes, if they're a super avid HP fan ;)  
> Furthermore, none of this content could in any way exist without the majestic JK Rowling, trumpets sound in the distance, drum rolls, we all applaud.


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